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Constructive Democracy 

=— =and =^_- . 

The Science of Political Ethics 


BY 

WILLIAM J. FLACY 


Published by 

WILLIAM J. FLACY 

Kansas City, Missouri, U. S. A. 


Copyright 1923 by 
William J. Flacy 


Free to translate into foreign languages 
and reported to author. 







THIS BOOK 

I dedicate to my four children, 

William C. Flacy, Mrs. Helena M. Huhn, 
Mrs. Ruby F. Stevens, Mrs. Rosalie V. McMarty, 
All of Kansas City, Missouri. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 


ARTICLE I. 

Indirect Consumptive Taxes and Land Rents; How 

Shifted to the Consumers. V 

ARTICLE II. 

The Machinery of Production; Its Relation to Man... 17 
ARTICLE III. 

Definitions and Comments. 23 

ARTICLE IV. 

The Law that Governs Rent of Land, Interest on 

Capital and Wages to Labor. 37 

ARTICLE V. 

Money is Neither Wages, Wealth nor Capital, as 

Usually Accepted and Understood . 57 

ARTICLE VI. 

The Three Great Discoveries, Highly Developed 
Machinery, Chemistry and the Science of 
Political Ethics. 83 

ARTICLE VII. 

Competition, Constructive and Destructive. 95 

ARTICLE VIII. 

Only Two Schools of Politics.103 

ARTICLE IX. 

What Is Law?.119 

ARTICLE X. 

Ninth Chapter “Social Statics”; the Rights of Man 

To Use the Earth...143 

ARTICLE XI. 

Conclusion .. 161 

Last Word.-185 































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INTRODUCTION 


There are some things in this little book I do 
not like. There are some things which you will 
not like. Draw a line through all of these things, 
and that which is left will give you pause. 

In the minds of all students, thinkers, and 
workers, the conviction is deepening that “all is 
not right with the world.” That something is 
wrong is seen and confessed by banker, by mer¬ 
chant, by manufacturer, and by the toiler in fac¬ 
tory and field. 

Theorists infatuated with their theories, cun¬ 
ning men enamored of selfish schemes, and impa¬ 
tient men worn out with waiting and hope de¬ 
ferred, each have proposed a remedy. The first 
sort is academic, the second is at best but pallia¬ 
tive, while the third is one of violence. 

Mr. Flacy shows in this book that he is not 
beguiled by visions, nor blinded by selfishness nor 
inflamed with destructive madness. 

The master idea of the author is that natural 
laws underlie and control the business relations 
of the human world. Our present system ignores 
these laws, violates these laws, contravenes and 



flaunts these laws, and the result is the inevitable 
turmoil, inequity and confusion prevalent today. 

This book is not an hysterical arraignment of 
capitalism, nor a mad denunciation of the banking 
system, nor a frenzied fulmination at Wall Street. 
Neither is it a feverish and pathetic appeal to 
those suffering under the present system. It is 
logical, calm and sustained. The style is so simple 
and the reasoning so clear that the workers can 
understand it. The book is short that the busy 
man can find time to read it, while the principles 
set forth are so fundamental that the profoundest 
thinker cannot refute them. If a few million of 
our people read this little book, the dawn of a new 
and better day is at hand. 



ARTICLE I. 


INDIRECT CONSUMPTIVE TAXATION AND LAND 
RENTS; HOW SHIFTED ON CONSUMERS TO PAY. 

G O to any grocery store in any city, and pur¬ 
chase a sack of flour; say it costs five dollars; 
it is hard to know just what the flour itself costs, 
as the bill you get is not itemized; it reads, “One 
sack of flour, $5.00, 1 ” but you are paying for 
something besides flour, which the bill does not 
show. It is safe to say that the cost of the flour, 
itself, is not more than 40% on the dollar of 
what you pay. The cost of raising the wheat, of 
elevators, milling, and transportation, wholesale 
and retail, from farmer to consumer, with cost 
of handling, is not more than $2.00 for the flour, 
on a basis of fair and moral profit to all engaged 
in the transactions, if it were not for abnormal¬ 
ly high land rents and indirect consumptive taxa¬ 
tion, all of which must be added to the goods, so 
that when the goods are sold to the consumers 
the high price is made higher. This applies to all 
goods. 

We must pay $5.00 for a sack of flour that 
should cost us about $2.00 only. Where does the 
three dollars go? The wheat must pass through 
from three to six different hands from producer 
to consumer, in the process of manufacturing and 
exchange. Each of those through whose hands 


12 


Constructive Democracy 


the wheat must pass has to pay abnormal land 
rents, also merchant’s tax, occupation tax and city 
licenses, besides personal property taxes; and on 
top of all this, come excessive freight rates and 
price fixing associations. Adding all these to¬ 
gether we may plainly see that land rents and the 
different kinds of consumptive taxes are assessed 
from 35 to 65 times. All unnecessary expense 
added to the cost of production of goods, whether 
it be flour or any other kind of goods, is shifted 
on the consumers, when they buy. It is easy to 
see where the $3.00 go when once analyzed. 

Here is where and how the $3.00 go: The 
farmer who raises the wheat must pay personal 
taxes on buildings, machinery, stock, household 
goods and grain, all of which make production 
cost more, raising the price of grain and stock a 
little higher when sold. Then the country ele¬ 
vator buys the wheat, making the cost a little 
more. The elevator owners must pay personal 
taxes on all their buildings, machinery, and must 
also pay for from 2 to 6 kinds of licenses, and 
must pay land rents as well. These expenses are 
all added together for the next to pay when the 
wheat is sold. 

The next to buy are the large elevator owners 
in the great centers; here the land rents are ab¬ 
normally high, and there are switch yards and 
rents to increase the expense, besides personal 
property taxes on buildings, machinery, and 
grain, and from 2 to 6 kinds of licenses. All 


Taxeg and Land Rents—How Shifted 13 

these are added to the cost and shifted on the 
next to buy and to pay. 

The next in line to buy are the millers. They, 
too, are put through the same ordeal, in regard 
to high land rents and personal and license taxes. 
The millers add their own load to those that were 
handed down the line, and the entire amount is 
shifted on the next to buy and pay. 

The retailers are the next in line; they, also, 
must pay high land rents, personal taxes and 
city taxes, merchants’ and occupation taxes. All 
of these land rents and personal taxes and li¬ 
censes, from the producer to the consumer, are' 
added together for the consumer to pay. 

At last comes the consumer to buy a sack of 
flour. In each exchange, from the farmer to 
consumer, there are land rents and personal taxes, 
besides from 2 to 6 different kinds of licenses, 
all adding to the cost of production, and the 
whole is shifted to the consumer. In the aggre¬ 
gate there are from 30 to 65 different licenses, 
land rents and taxes, shifted to the consumer, 
and which he is unable to shift farther, so the 
joke is on him. 

From this it may be clearly seen that we do 
not pay taxes in proportion to the privileges each 
holds and possesses; but we are paying in pro¬ 
portion to the amount of goods each consumes. 
By this method we are letting privilege and mo¬ 
nopoly escape the payment of their just propor¬ 
tion of taxes. There has never been a way found 


14 


Constructive Democracy 


to make wealth pay taxes, and there never will 
be, and it would be wrong, if we could find a 
way — it would be taking private property for 
public use, and that would be a breach of true 
ethics, destroying the sacred rights of private 
property. 

Wrong methods of taxation make low wages 
and curtail consumption, which, in turn, close 
factories, bringing unemployment and hard times, 
interfering with natural co-operation between the 
farmers and artisans of the factories. When the 
industrial does not receive sufficient wages to 
buy and consume the product of its own pro¬ 
duction, we are working in contravention of the 
law of nature, and the plan must inevitably de¬ 
feat itself, after we have reached the state of 
science and discovery which we have achieved 
in the past sixty years. 

W 7 illiam Pitt said in Parliament: ‘There is a 
method by which you can tax the last rag from 
the back and the last bite from the mouth, with¬ 
out causing a murmur against high taxes; and 
that is to tax a great many articles of daily use 
and necessity so indirectly that the people will pay 
them and not know it. Their grumbling, then, 
will be of hard times, but they will not know 
that the hard times are caused by taxation.” 

This is the almost invisible mystery that is 
baffling civilization at this time, of the entire 
globe, and which has been the case for the past 
forty years. 


Taxes and Land Rents—How Shifted 15 

Taxation of land values is the only tax that 
stays where it is put, and is impossible to shift 
upon others, because levied upon a thing that 
is unconsumable, hence cannot fall on consump¬ 
tion. Properly, it is not a tax at all, as it is a 
value that is created by the thrift and frugality 
of the people, as a whole, collectively, and by 
right of nature belongs to its creators, the pub¬ 
lic, for the public use. But now it falls into the 
hands of the possessor of the land, without any 
effort on his part, by reason of special privilege, 
which he holds, granted and guaranteed by the 
nation, making him a debtor to the people. The 
value may come from location, productivity or 
site. 

Suppose that two persons own 40 acres of 
land each; that the land is of the same value as 
to productiveness, as each 40 acres will yield the 
same amount of wheat, with the same efforts 
and labor. Say that each will yield 1,000 bushels 
a year, on an average, one year with another. 

Mr. Jones’ 40 acres is 20 miles from the ele¬ 
vator to which he must haul and sell his wheat, 
and on account of the long haul, costs him $100.00. 
Mr. Smith’s 40 acres is only one mile from this 
same elevator, where he must sell and deliver, and 
since the elevator is so much closer than to Mr. 
Jones’ 40 acres, it costs Mr. Smith only $25.00 to 
deliver. 


16 


Constructive Democracy 


Thus: 

Mr. Jones’ haul and delivery costs him.. .$100.00 

Mr. Smith’s costs him only. 25.00 

Which shows a difference in favor of Mr. - 

Smith, of.$ 75.00 


This difference falls into Smith’s hands with¬ 
out any effort on his part, at all; it is an ad¬ 
vantage he has by reason of the location of his 
40 acres, and which he owes to the public and to 
the state which guarantees his holding. This is 
not a tax, at all; and after paying this differ¬ 
ence, he still has full and undivided ownership, 
and of all that others pay into the public fund, 
as well. When this method is properly classified 
it is government free from taxation. 

The instance given here, relates to location, 
only, but there are several other reasons, not nec¬ 
essary to bring in, as I feel that all that is de¬ 
sired to see, will be easily seen. 

What takes place by the purchase of flour is 
the same when we buy a suit of clothes, shoes, a 
reaper, a cultivator or a sewing machine, or any 
kind of goods, it makes no difference what. 

The world is full of those who are ready and 
willing to criticise and grumble; but there are 
few who are willing or able to propose an equit¬ 
able remedy and stand by it. 

When this subject is studied with great care 
and meditated upon, one cannot help but see the 
guiding star to true liberty. 





ARTICLE II. 


MACHINERY OF PRODUCTION AND ITS 
RELATION TO MAN. 

This article applies to every line of industry , 
as well as that of brick manufacturing. 

T HE hydraulic brick manufacturing company 
installs the improved brick machine, because it 
improves the quality of the output and increases 
production enormously, and because it is a great 
labor saver; it enables the company to put out as 
many brick in one day with only ten men, as 
would require one hundred men to produce in 
the same time, with the old style machine. By 
the use of the new machine ninety men are dis¬ 
charged. 

In another part of the city there is the Jones 
Brick Manufacturing Company, which is unable 
to compete with the modern improved brick ma¬ 
chine; therefore, the Jones Company is compelled 
to install the new machine, also. Otherwise, the 
company would be undersold and put out of busi¬ 
ness. Ninety more men are discharged by reason 
of the installation of the machine by the Jones 
Company; hence, because of the installation of 
the two modern machines, 180 men lose their 
jobs. In the course of a short time 1,000 of these 
machines are installed throughout the country. 
The result is that 90,000 men lose their jobs. 


18 


Constructive Democracy 


The effect is, the more men out of jobs, the 
lower they are compelled to bid against one an¬ 
other for work, which determines and sets the 
price of wages. The men out of work are placed 
in a desperate position; they are sentenced to 
starvation, and that is the real factor that sets 
the price of wages, regardless of what unionists 
may think. This is what creates strike-breakers. 

Have not the tractor, harvester, cultivator 
and many other kinds of machinery brought near¬ 
ly the same displacement of labor and increased 
production on the farm? Have they not created 
a condition which forces men to bid against one 
another to rent farms, which raises the prices of 
land, and at the same time lowers the earnings 
of the farmers, even of those who own their farms 
clear? This is what is driving men from the 
farms to the cities, which are already over¬ 
stocked with unemployment, and then back to the 
farms, again, bidding against one another to get 
jobs or to rent farms, and thus driving up the 
price of land and driving down wages to lower 
and lower levels. 

Under wrong, inequitable methods of taxa¬ 
tion, the more productive machinery is brought 
into use, the lower will the price of labor go, 
and the higher will be the price of land. Because 
of this increase of production, which should go to 
wages, all, now, under wrong taxation, goes to 
land rent. Then it is taken away from the land 
owners, by large financial interests and combines. 


Machinery; Its Relation to Man 19 

Taxes, of themselves, do not amount to much, 
but the effects amount to more than those of any 
other question with which men must deal, as 
equitable taxation is the holy ghost of justice and 
full life, both of the individual and of the nation. 

When those who work in factories, stores, 
railways and mines are not getting full reward 
for their services, how can the producing farmer 
prosper and live, as those upon whom he must 
depend to consume his products are not being 
paid a full reward for their labor? This curtails 
consumption. The farmer is producing what 
those living in the cities must have, and those 
of the cities are producing what the farmers must 
have; and under present conditions the two are 
unable to co-operate. 

The effect of inequitable taxation is to cut 
down the earnings of both the working farmer 
and of the laborer, in all lines of industry, more 
than 60% of what it should be under equitable 
methods of taxation. Now, this increase which 
machinery and chemistry bring, only causes an 
artificial value to land, which is the foundation 
and asset in which big banking, trusts and com¬ 
bines plant and rest their feet. And the big in¬ 
terests get the larger portion of all this abnormal 
land rent, from ocean to ocean. This keeps the 
circulating medium continuously flowing into the 
great bank vaults, in the name of interest on 
mortgages and investments. This is unnatural 
and therefore is truly usury; it is not interest, but 


20 


Constructive Democracy 


is the natural tax, and when land rent becomes 
abnormal, then it also absorbs the wages of all 
farmers, laborers and business. All of the legis¬ 
lating in the world cannot keep this from being 
usury. Disobedience of the natural law is what 
makes this usury. Legislating can never make a 
wrong thing right. We may be able to fool others 
and ourselves, but never the natural law. Every 
disobedience will be paid for with a penalty, of 
that we may rest assured. 
















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ARTICLE III. 


DEFINITION'S AND COMMENTS. 

W HEN Mr. Webster and others compiled dic¬ 
tionaries of the English language, the science 
of political ethics had hardly been known of or 
discovered; nor was it analyzed nor arranged in 
proper and applicable order. Under such condi¬ 
tions how could they give the proper definitions 
or meanings of words and terms pertaining to this 
science. 

Mr. Henry George was the first person ever 
born to discover this defect and make the neces¬ 
sary corrections. He was the first who had the 
intellect, will, patience and power to analyze, ar¬ 
range into proper natural order these terms, giv¬ 
ing their correct definitions and power, showing 
them to be exact and applicable to this science. 
He did this 42 years ago, but what he did seems 
to have been disregarded, as his corrections have 
never yet been accepted, nor have the text books 
been revised as far as his discoveries are con- 
corned ; they have simply been left out of the text 
books. The great places of learning and the dic¬ 
tionaries on this subject are about as they were 
100 years ago. For this reason I feel it necessary 
to define a few of the most important terms per¬ 
taining to this science. 


24 


Constructive Democracy 


CIVILIZATION: Civilization is voluntary 
co-operation of equitable production, exchange and 
division of wealth; it is not achieved yet, as our 
methods are neither voluntary nor equitable. Be¬ 
fore we can ascend into a high state of civiliza¬ 
tion we must first have equitable taxation, which 
will create equity of production and division of 
wealth, and also free exchange; then we shall have 
voluntary co-operation in all branches of human 
endeavor, which is civilization. Until that is 
brought into play in the game of life we are 
only kid glove barbarians. Before we have the 
right to be distinguished as civilized we must 
draw equitable lines, showing clearly where both 
individual civil official rights and wrong begin 
and end, which must be in accordance with natural 
ethics. Individual rights naturally existed before 
the state was created, and these individual rights 
are being withheld by legislation, artificial rule 
administering of the nations. 

CAPITAL: Capital is that portion of wealth 
which is used in the production of new or more 
wealth; and represents the tools used in the pro¬ 
cess of production, only; namely, machinery on 
farm and in factory—any and all instruments that 
are used in the production of goods of consump¬ 
tion; the things that wear out in the process of 
production; tools, ships, cars, and railways, and 
shovels and hand needles are included. If one 
have two automobiles, and uses one as a jitney, 
that is capital. By that one he must earn enough 


Definitions and Comments 


25 


over and above wages to repair the natural wear- 
out and replacement of itself. This is the cost 
and wear-out, which is the natural interest on 
capital, and which is moral and must be. This is 
not like ground rent nor usury nor extortion, 
which money-lending exacts and misnames inter¬ 
est. The other automobile, which is used only as 
a pleasure car, is wealth, not capital. When this 
one wears out the owner must replace it from the 
earnings made by the use of the jitney; thus, 
both are wealth, but only one is capital. Capital 
must receive interest from services rendered the 
public; the other must be maintained from the 
private pocket. Properly, land is neither wealth 
nor capital, but it is the only source from which 
both wealth and capital can come. Nearly all of 
our social and economic troubles come from try¬ 
ing to force land to be capital, which the natural 
law forbids. Our Civil War came from forcing 
the colored people to be capital. Natural law said, 
“No; it will not work!” Neither will it work on 
ground rent; ground rent cannot be interest on 
capital, but is the natural tax. 

CO-OPERATION: Co-operation is the nat¬ 
ural, harmonious, voluntary result that follows 
bringing into play the science of equitable taxa¬ 
tion, which alone can make that possible. 

Man cannot live by his own labor alone; he is 
a social being and must co-operate with his fel- 
lowhian. The more he adheres to the natural law, 


26 


Constructive Democracy 


the more harmonious and voluntary will co-opera¬ 
tion be, mounting to higher and higher stages. 

All inequitable taxation interferes with nat¬ 
ural advancement, as inequitable taxation raises 
land rents to abnormal heights, absorbing both 
natural taxes and the producers’ wages. In the 
same proportion as land rents are raised, wages 
will fall, thus hindering co-operation and advance¬ 
ment. From this interference we are made to 
think that politics and government are complex 
and intricate, which is not true, but is only made 
to seem so, by artificial rule, which interferes 
with the natural order and advancement. 

No one person could produce one single high 
grade lead pencil in a lifetime, by his own labor 
and efforts. To produce one requires the services 
and co-operation of thousands of persons, besides 
hundreds of years of experience. There are men 
in Egypt digging gum from the sand, there are 
others in forests getting out timber, and others 
are getting out copper, zinc, iron, and raising 
sheep, cotton and getting out graphite and rub¬ 
ber; others are casting car wheels, others are 
building ships and cars for transportation. All of 
these and many more are co-operating in the pro¬ 
duction of one single lead pencil. The same is 
true of the sewing machine and all articles of 
daily use. 

All life comes from labor, applied to land, di¬ 
rect or indirect. Is life sacred? If so, is it not 
true that to violate this right is to deny life? 


Definitions and Comments 


27 


It is easy and cheap to thank God for blessings, 
but it is humiliating and expensive to be fair to 
the industrial. 

CHRISTIANITY: Christianity is natural 
equity and exact science of political ethics applied 
to national government before the individual is 
free to act in an ethical manner and be fair in 
his relations with his fellow man, and is the dem¬ 
ocratic call to the individual first, to form the 
equitable state, which is the true salvation of both 
man and nation. 

ETHICS: Ethics is the natural law and 
science, duty and moral conduct of men's relations 
to one another, political and social. 

I shall dispense with the term, “economy,” 
in this work, and bring into its place the word, 
“ethics,” which will then read, “political ethics,” 
instead of “political economy,” because neither of 
the terms, “economy,” nor “economics,” nor even 
“sociology,” has any more relation to this science 
than have neckties to brickbats. 

Economy means to be saving or sparing in 
the expenditures and use of the public money or 
taxes, and deals only with physical values and 
material things—the public's wealth, which has 
no relation to the abstract of science and funda¬ 
mental principles of the natural law, as science 
and fundamentals deal with the natural law, only. 
Ethics is the natural, moral, conductive relations 
and duty of the state and nation to deal equitably 
with the individual in raising the public moneys 


28 


Constructive Democracy 


by taxation; and to protect and defend him in 
his natural ethical rights of private property, op¬ 
portunity, exchange and division of wealth, which 
is to automatically resolve the state into a state 
of equity; then every tub will stand on its own 
bottom. 

Ethics is a science and deals with the natural 
law, only, God of itself, while the other economy 
deals only with physical matter. One is conducted 
with power from above, while the other is con¬ 
cerned with conditions from below, and has no 
direct relation to the natural law. 

Individual rights are first, because they are 
natural. National rights are artificial, which 
places them second, as the nation is created of 
and by the individuals for the mutual protection 
of its creators. For the nation to disobey this is 
to usurp power and be liable to become despotic. 

EQUITY: Equity is a state of being where all 
have an equal chance to produce wealth free, with 
the exception of natural taxes; it includes free¬ 
dom of exchange, by which, as a result, an equit¬ 
able division of wealth automatically takes place, 
just in accordance with services rendered, and is 
the opposite of inequality or iniquity, which ap¬ 
pears so often in the Scriptures, but which is 
never made clear nor spoken of by pulpiteers. 
Equity is a state in which there is no special priv¬ 
ilege nor respect of persons, but in which princi¬ 
ples are respected only and without mercy, by 
civil authority—God, Himself; that is liberty, the 


Definitions and Comments 


29 


square, compass and level; then will every tub 
stand on its own bottom; then man will be free 
and responsible for his acts. 

FARMER: A farmer is one who works, him¬ 
self, and is engaged in producing grain, grass and 
stock; he is a participant in farm products. The 
word does not necessarily mean a farm owner, but 
a worker. 

LANDLORD: Landlord is a land owner, and 
implies the ownership of land, city or farm. One 
may own the land on which he produces farm 
products; then he is both landlord and farmer. 
Persons may own farms, and rent them to others, 
and then say that they are farmers. But they 
are, in fact, only landlords, who do not need to 
to work; they only work the workers. It is neces¬ 
sary to bring this in on account of the abuse of 
the term, “farmer.” 

INTEREST: Interest is the cost and nat¬ 
ural wear-out on capital. Capital is the tools that 
are used in the process of producing new and 
more wealth. Farming machinery, railways, ships, 
shovels, and cambric needles are capital. 

Interest is the cost of replacement of the 
wear-out of capital. Interest, proper, is natural, 
equitable and just, and must enter into the cost 
of production, and must not be drawn from wages. 
Interest is not what bankers and money lenders 
draw and get, when they exact the premium on 
money they loan. What they are getting is the 
abnormal land rents; and the land rents are the 


30 


Constructive Democracy 


natural taxes and the wages of fanners and all 
others in industrial lines earn. Interest, as un¬ 
derstood by the money lenders is nothing more 
nor less than usury, when we come to analyze 
it; in spite of legislation, it is usury. Mammade 
rule cannot prevent this from being usury, when 
taken for private use. 

LAND RENT: Land rent is determined by 
the excess amount of its products over that from 
which the same amount of labor can secure from 
the least productive land in use. 

Where a given amount of labor expended on 
one acre of the least productive land will yield 
50 bushels, as compared with the same amount 
of labor on the most productive, which will yield 
75 bushels of crop, the difference in yield be¬ 
tween the two is the land rent, which is equal 
to 33 1/8%, either in crop or money. If the crop 
will bring 25% per bushel, the rent in money 
would be $6.25, on the most productive acre. This 
does not include improvements nor house rent, as 
they are made by men, and are a private affair, 
and private property, while the land is made by 
the God of Nature, a free gift to all men, and 
should be used on terms of equity. See Ecc. 5-9; 
Neh. 5, 10-11; Rev. 18, 8-9-10-11. 

LEGITIMATE: Made legal; sanctioned by 
legislation. Man may make legal, and it may not 
be lawful by natural law and ethics. Whatever 
is lawful must spring from and rest on the moral 
law of nature, as then it will always be equitable 


Definitions and Comments 


31 


and constructive in every detail. To deny this is 
to deny the God of all cosmos, itself. Wrongs 
have their making in man; but rights always were 
and do not need to be created, but need to be 
seen and comprehended; they are very simple, 
when we are willing to look. All power comes 
from nature, or God, Himself. To misapply this 
power is to become force and fraud; this is all the 
devil I am able to find. Seventy years ago, own¬ 
ership of the negro was legal and legitimate, 
though that never made it right nor moral. 

Is it not worse to take what does not belong 
to us, by legal methods, than to take it without? 
Yes, because there is no chance of defense to the 
innocent and faithful. This is what places all in 
the position of self-defense, and directs everyone 
against his neighbor and brother. 

Who was it that was fooled by the World 
War? The gods, and those who understand this 
science are laughing at the methods of the mighty 
wise reconstructionists. 

NATURAL LAW: Natural law is the invis¬ 
ible power that affects matter, upon which all 
science must depend for power, action and results— 
mathematics, chemistry, machinery, politics, all 
science and life, itself, from the least to the great¬ 
est. No man can crook his finger, or wink his 
eye, of himself, independently of this power. 
There is not a ripple on the great seas, nor is a 
leaf shaken, of itself. Is not this the Omnipotent, 


32 


Constructive Democracy 


Omnipresent, Omniscient Cause of all that was, 
that is, and that will be—the cosmos of the one 
great whole, and God, of itself? 

Man is the only animal in all creation that 
may receive this inspiration and power as a free 
gift from God, and he is able and free to turn 
this most wonderful power and blessing into 
either of two directions; into a constructive direc¬ 
tion and elevate himself, or into a destructive di¬ 
rection, and thereby lower himself beneath the 
brute, yet retain address and affability. 

PROFIT: The term, “profit,” does not enter 
into the science of politics, as many believe; be¬ 
cause of the fact that the three prime factors 
which do enter into this science completely cover 
the scope. Those three factors are land rent; in¬ 
terest on capital, and wages of labor. These 
three factors completely dispose of and divide up 
the whole in the first division of wealth. The 
subdivisions that take place afterward are indi¬ 
vidual business, not political. But the term, 
“profit,” enters into bookkeeping; this another 
evidence that the socialists, and all other writers 
who are only socialists, but not aware of the fact, 
failed to analyze this science; it may be seen by 
their text-books and other writings, that they are 
confused. See Article 5, for analysis. 

REVOLUTION: Means complete change of 
administering, not necessarily overthrow Gov¬ 
ernment, by war and bullets—but as such by de¬ 
mocracy and the ballot. 


Definitions and Comments 


33 


SCIENCE: Science is the understanding and 
application of the natural law to material sub¬ 
stance—spiritual and conditional effects, visible 
or invisible. 

Science is the understanding of the applica¬ 
tion, effect and relation between matter and the 
invisible divine law of nature—comprehension of 
its harmony, power and cosmos. 

Science is the physical and conditional, made, 
fashioned, adjusted and systematized so that it 
will harmonize with the invisible divine funda¬ 
mental foundation principle of the divine order of 
natural law and the will of nature—God, of it¬ 
self. 

USURY. Usury is that which is taken by 
legislation means when, by nature, it does not be¬ 
long to the taker. It is taking something for 
nothing; the taking of land rents by private par¬ 
ties for private use is usury, whether it be taken 
by money lenders or by a landlord. Land rent is 
the natural taxes, because it is created by the 
commonwealth and public, collectively, undivided, 
and by nature belongs to its creators, the public, 
undivided; it is a commonwealth value. 

For these reasons it should be taken only by 
the government for the public use; and taxation 
should be upon land values, only, exclusive of all 
improvements, whatever. 

























* 

















- 




























' 




■ 




















' 

































































* 










. 

















7 























































4 




I. 




* 







4 








% 












* 















* 


































ARTICLE IV. 

THE LAW THAT GOVERNS RENT ON LAND, 
INTEREST ON CAPITAL, AND WAGES 
TO LABOR. 

T HE tenant farmer rents 160 acres of land; 

as rent, the landlord takes two rows of corn, 
and the tenant keeps two. The same rule applies 
to wheat, oats and other crops—half and half, 
harvested and delivered, in crib, bin or elevator. 
This is about the customary proportion for rental 
of good fair land in the middle and western states, 
and it has been the proportion for many years. 
Let us suppose that the tenant produces $2,000.00 
worth of crops. The division takes place in the 
following manner: 

TENANT FARM TABLE. 

The landlord takes as rent (which to him is net).$1,000.00 


The tenant keeps (which to him is gross). 1,000.00 


Total crops ...$2,000.00 

The tenant’s portion (which is the gross).$1,000.00 

Subtract 33%% on the dollar, the cost of production. 666.66 


What he has left after costs of crops.333.34 

Regular taxes and wear-out of tools, which is interest. 45.00 


What he has left, and is again split into half when he buys 

goods.,.......$ 288.34 


High land rents, consumptive taxes on goods he buys at stores. 144.17 

$ 144.47 

All the wages he receives, from the $2,000.00 crops. And that 
is consumed. Which shows that wages is the last portion 
received in the division of wealth, in the process of pro¬ 
duction. 

All the wages he received went to land rent, consumptive 

taxes and freight.$144.47 

Land rent, interest and wages are all the 
factors that enter into the costs of production of 
wealth and completely divides the whole in this 
first division of the wealth produced. 














38 


Constructive Democracy 


The landlord takes as rent $1,000.00, the ten¬ 
ant keeps $1,000.00, which is the gross. Averag¬ 
ing one season with another, and one location with 
another, crops can hardly be produced for less 
than 50% on the dollar. In fact, costs are often 
more than that, but to be safe and conservative 
let us suppose it costs 83 l/3c on the dollar to 
produce crops. The tenant has to deduct from 
his share this amount, $666.66, which leaves him 
$333.34, from which he must yet deduct interest 
on capital, the wear-out, and the regular annual 
tax. Say he has two teams, a wagon, machinery, 
two cows, pigs and household furniture worth 
about $2,000.00; say his taxes and interest on his 
tools are about $45.00. He has left $288.34 on 
which to live and buy necessities. All the goods 
he buys must pass through several hands, in the 
process of manufacturing and exchange, fac¬ 
tories, elevators, wholesale and retail, each of 
which must pay high land rents, which is from 
3 to 6 different times; and each of which pays 
consumptive taxes, city taxes, occupation and 
merchants' licenses, altogether somewhere from 
30 to 50 times, from producer to consumer, be¬ 
sides, excessive freight rates. Adding them all 
together, it is evident that his earnings are again 
reduced fully 50% on the dollar, so that when 
he buys goods he has to pay $288.34 for goods 
that should sell for about $144.17. 

Don't lose sight of the fact that the product 
of labor is, properly, wealth; that when taxes 


39 


Land Rent, Interest and Wages 

are raised indirectly from personal property and 
goods for consumption, the division of wealth 
takes place in the following manner: 

The first portion taken is land rent; the sec¬ 
ond portion is interest, then annual taxes; and 
what is left goes to wages; but under wrong 
methods of taxation the wages are again re¬ 
duced, from 35% to 65% on the dollar, when 
the producer buys necessities, as may be seen 
from the foregoing table. 

Let us suppose that the tenant owned the 
farm on which he raised his crops; and that he 
received the whole of the $2,000.00 crop, to see 
whether he does much better. 

TABLE WHERE THE FARMER OWNS HIS FARM. 


We begin by crediting him with the whole of the crops.$2,000.00 

We first deduct the cost of crop production. 666.66 


Which leaves him.-..$1,338.34 

Regular annual taxes. 125.00 


What he has left.$1,208.34 

Deduct interest, the wear-out of machinery and improvements. 250.00 


What he has left.$ 958.34 

Land rents, consumptive taxes, excess freight, on what he 

must buy. 479.17 


What he has left, as his wages, out of his $2,000.00 crop.$ 479.17 


Here he has a $2,000.00 crop to his credit. 
The first duduction is the cost of crop produc¬ 
tion, 33 1/3% on the dollar, which is $666.66; 
this leaves him $1,333.34. 

Say he has a farm, two teams, a few cattle 
and hogs, a house and barn and machinery and 
household furniture. Say he has his regular an¬ 
nual taxes, $125.00; this deduction leaves him 
with $1,208.34; the next deduction, is interest 













40 


Constructive Democracy 


on capital, which is the wear-out on his per¬ 
sonal property. Tools and personal property wear 
out, and require a higher rate of interest than 
the rate required on borrowed money, since the 
personal property wears out quickly, for instance, 
farm implements, usually placed at 15%. But 
to be conservative, say he has $2,500 worth of 
personal property, and we make the rate only 
10%. Leaving out insurance, we say the amount 
is $250.00; when this is deducted the amount 
left is $958.84. 

This may appear to be his wages to those 
who are not able to reason clearly, but it is not, 
because of the fact that all the things he must 
buy with this $958.34 reduce it fully 50% or 
more, on account of abnormally high land rents 
and consumptive taxes, which each dealer) must 
pay through whose hands the necessities must 
pass; and all of which are added to the price 
of goods he buys. Therefore, his wages are re¬ 
duced again from 35% to 65% on the dollar, in 
the process of manufacturing and exchange from 
producer to consumer, in the course from pro¬ 
ducer, factory, wholesale and retail. Each of 
these must pay abnormally high land rent, and 
from three to six different kinds of consumptive 
taxes from 20 to 45 times, tax and land rents, 
which leaves him, as wages, only $479.67 from 
his $2,000.00 crop. Besides, every now and then, 
he has a horse, cow or some hogs that die; he 
also has losses from drought or other losses 


Land Rent, Interest and Wages 41 

which cannot be accurately calculated. This 
shows that he does not get 20% on the dollar 
of what he produces, even though he owns his 
farm clear and out of debt. 

To think! that is the trouble! To think! 
that is a woman’s job. Most men are only phys¬ 
ical. To them, harvesting, plowing corn, grumb¬ 
ling, and throwing brick-bats are easy. Women 
are more mentally inclined—more inclined to 
reason. Will they turn the joke, and merit the 
glory? The blank pages of history are waiting 
for records. 

The above estimate is still too low; but I 
wish to be on safe footing and conservative. 
What is shown in the estimate is as true a baro¬ 
meter and measure as can well be arranged, for 
the average farm, factory, railroad, mines, pack¬ 
ing plant, lumber business, and all industry of 
every nature. This same division takes place in 
all—in every line, as shown in this farm table. 
In each case land rents come first, and second 
come indirect consumptive taxes and interest on 
capital; third come wages, which are again split 
in half when spent for necessities of life. Then 
we are told to keep smiling! 

Wages, properly, are the quantity of goods 
received, in comparison with the quantity of 
products given in exchange. That is the true 
measure of wages. 

This law is so exact that the God of Nature 
cannot raise wages and earnings to the producers 


42 


Constructive Democracy 


one cent, except by lowering land rents one cent, 
and wages will correspondingly raise to the same 
and exact proportion, no more or no less. 

Now, let us go back and take up the tenant 
farmer again. For the reasons above given it is 
no wonder that men are driven from the farms 
to the cities, where they seek employment, in 
the already over-stocked labor markets. But 
necessity and love of home and family drive 
the farmer on—a hope that cannot die. In the 
city he finds employment, in shops, on rail¬ 
ways, in stores or factories; there he again pro¬ 
duces wealth, but in another form. But the 
division of the wealth which he produces is just 
the same as it was on the farm, except that in 
the city the wealth he produces falls into the 
hands of his employer, therefore it is not so easy 
to see that the same proportion is taken, by ab¬ 
normal land rents, and indirect consumptive tax¬ 
es are deducted from the proceeds of what he 
produces in the factory. What is left after the 
deduction is handed to him as his wages. And 
when he spends the wages for necessities the 
split is again fully 50%, by reason of the high 
land rents and taxes added to the cost of the 
goods he must buy. 

On the farm he was a party to the division, 
an eye-witness, but in the factory the division 
takes place in an obscure way, behind closed 
doors, by the other fellow. 


Land Rent, Interest and Wages 43 

In the city, also, the farmer finds it hard 
to make ends meet; he joins a union; a strike 
takes place; the increase of wages brought to the 
group of successful strikers must be paid by the 
group that consumes the goods that the striking 
group is producing, even though the pay checks 
do come from the employers. But the consum¬ 
ers are really the ones who pay the bills. 

Increasing wages by striking is only taking 
wages from the pockets of one group and trans¬ 
ferring the money to the pockets of another 
group, which is not an equitable remedy, because 
this method does not have the effect of lower¬ 
ing land rents, which is the only remedy and 
goal of the situation. 

Abnormally high land rents are automatical¬ 
ly absorbing the wages of the workers, farmers 
and of all other industries. Increasing wages 
by striking is only making war on effect and not 
on the cause of low wages. Striking is futile, 
and is a waste of energy in the counter-action 
of itself, and is lowering and endangering civiliza¬ 
tion. Striking injures the strikers, themselves. 
We may strike until the crack of doom and never 
get beyond the point from which we started. 
When we win, we lose. Spend a few hours study¬ 
ing the mystery and science of taxation; then 
we shall be able to see how just and equitable 
wages may be brought about, in a civil demo¬ 
cratic way—by the ballot. 


44 


Constructive Democracy 


If we are not wise enough to vote men into 
office to do this for us, we are not wise enough 
to organize a party, and do it ourselves. We are 
fooled now, because we do not know how to com¬ 
bat the evil. Would we not then be equally de¬ 
ceived, if we do not understand the natural law 
that governs wages, which will cause them to 
be equitable? 

We should look to principles and not par¬ 
ties since the same group that deceives u£ now 
dominates the parties and controls the candi¬ 
dates of both parties ? What good can we do by 
voting either of their ballots? We are more than 
nine to one in strength and numbers. But not 
mentally, oh, no! We need to have only two 
planks in our platform. Stop with two. Then 
there will be something doing. First, get united 
on equity; then either party will be more than 
pleased to fulfill the desire of the majority. 
Politicians will then cut loose from party bosses, 
as soon as they see that the producers get wise. 
Now, they fear the boss organization.! 

The two planks are: First, taxation of land 
values, only; second, government,ownership and 
operation of all natural public utilities. When 
we get those two things, banking and specula¬ 
tion will be in the same position that Samson 
was when he had his hair clipped. 

All of the chambers of commerce, chambers 
of deputies, reichstags, parliaments, congresses 


Land Rent, Interest and Wages 


45 


and the holy host of heaven may then join to¬ 
gether and work in collusion, but they will be 
unable to raise wages one cent, except by bring¬ 
ing down land rents. When land rent falls one 
cent, wages will rise one cent. If land rent falls 
361,4c, wages will rise, exactly 36%c. That is, 
when land rent rises, wages will fall in the same 
proportion, and vice versa. I 

Thus we find that the whole product of 
wealth is divided into three parts, only: The 
first part taken, land rent, which is about 50% 
of the whole; the second part, interest on cap¬ 
ital, which is the wear-out of tools, of produc¬ 
tions, only. What is left is what goes to wages, 
which is again reduced 50% when spent. 

Therefore, we are confronted by the propo¬ 
sition: If wages are to be increased, it can be 
done only by bringing down the land rent, as 
interest is only the wear-out of capital—of the 
tools and machinery used in the course of pro¬ 
duction of wealth, and as there is no way of 
making tools that do not wear out; consequently 
interest cannot be lowered. Then there is no way 
of raising wages equitably, except by lowering 
land rents, which even the Almighty cannot do, 
except by counter-action of its own power and 
law, and it will never be done that way as there 
is nothing to increase wages from except land 
rent. 

When this is realized by farmers, laborers, 
factory and business men, then it will be under- 


46 


Constructive Democracy- 


stood that whatever is to the interest of one, is 
to the interest of all; that the interests of the 
various groups are identical. In matters of 
voluntary co-operation, the more the better and 
the higher will civilization mount. Selfishness 
is unnecessary, in this high state of science, as 
there is more than enough for all when reason 
rules. 

This change cannot be brought about by 
faith, hope and the lipping of prayers, alone. 
Real prayer is acting and doing—“Thy will be 
done on earth, as it is in heaven.” And the 
change cannot be brought about by waiting for 
others to do what is needful. The shepherds 
have long fooled the sheep. In order to remedy 
conditions, honesty, meditation and action on the 
part of the plain people, themselves, are needed, 
when the shepherds refuse to do right. We 
need not call on God to do these things for us, 
as He has already told us that He will not do 
for us what we can do for ourselves. All God 
can do is to furnish the natural law and give us 
reasoning powers, so that we may see what and 
how to do. And if we fail in this the same 
natural law would automatically reverse itself 
and burn us up by its consuming fires. Are you 
able to see the necessity of equity and natural 
law of constructive competition? It is the nat¬ 
ural, automatic governor of both men and na¬ 
tions. 


47 


Land Rent, Interest and Wages 

Taxation of land values, only, can increase 
wages to the workers; that is just and equitable, 
from the fact that by that method each is re¬ 
warded justly, and in exact proportion to serv¬ 
ices rendered. Then the producer will not have 
to pay land rents for the right to work. Nor 
will he be compelled to pay consumptive taxes 
added to the cost of goods which he consumes. 
With these two items completely removed wages 
will rise fully from 50% to 65% higher than 
they now are, automatically and spontaneously. 
When the matter is settled by this method it 
will remain settled forever. Then labor will not 
have to bid against one another for jobs, in¬ 
dustries will then be obliged to bid against one 
another for men. 

Unions may think they set the price of labor. 
But what they do is only temporary. The man 
out of a job is the real factor that determines 
wages, from the fact that he is sentenced to 
starve, beg or steal. When moderp machinery 
and chemistry have reached the point where one 
man’s labor is equal to 300 men of 100 years 
ago, p great surplus of labor is created, which 
makes it easy for captains of big business to pit 
half of this surplus labor against the other half. 
Striking is futile, silly and hurtful to the labor¬ 
ers, themselves, as well as to the economic con¬ 
dition of the entire nation, of which all are mem¬ 
bers. 


48 


Constructive Democracy 


No doubt wages are too low. The way to 
raise them to an equitable proportion is to bring 
into play the science of equitable taxation; then 
wages will rise in the same proportion as land 
rents fall, free from all indirect and consumptive 
taxes. Wages will then rise from 50% to 65%, 
which will increase the earnings of all work¬ 
ing farmers and those employed in ordinary busi¬ 
ness, proportionately, as each must depend upon 
those who buy their products. 

We are being guided by leaders who can 
talk well and loudly, making promises, fire spit¬ 
ting, spell-binding and jazz, to get good jobs; 
making threats and, attempting to show others 
where to get on or off. By such methods we 
are overcome and carried away. There is no ar¬ 
gument in that, they appear to be our friends, 
though they are not; they are seeking jobs for 
themselves, and are oftentimes our worst ene¬ 
mies, regardless of the fact that they are af¬ 
fable and, seemingly, wise. 

There are many farmers who have been 
prejudiced against equitable taxation by the large 
combines, who raise millions of dollars to scare 
farmers out of one fit into a thousand. These 
combines aften hirej lawyers and newspapers to 
misrepresent the truth about equitable science 
of taxation. Uninformed persons are made to 
think that they would be paying more than their 
proper share of the taxes, which is not true. 
The fact is that equitable taxation removes all of 


Land Rent, Interest and Wages 49 

the tax from the real farmer and places it all on 
privilege, which the holders! of privilege rightly 
owe to the public; and when privileges are held 
by an operative working farmer equitable taxa¬ 
tion will be greatly to his benefit, as it will raise 
his earnings or wages from 50% to 65% above 
what they now are, on an average. And it will 
put a kink in big banking and speculating in 
land, also in market control of what the farmer 
must either sell or buy. This must come, or 
civilization cannot live, since, under wrong meth¬ 
ods of taxation the division of wealth cannot 
take place in accordance with the services ren¬ 
dered. 

Working farmers sometimes think that be¬ 
cause they own the largest bulk in acreage they 
would be paying more than their proper portion 
of the taxes; but that is not true. They have 
by far the largest amount in acreage, but by far 
the smallest amount in land values, as may be 
seen by turning to table No. 2. The real large 
and most valuable) lands are in the great cities, 
water fronts, mineral lands, including iron, cop¬ 
per, coal, zinc, oil; great timber holdings, nat¬ 
ural water power, railways and many other hold¬ 
ings too numerous to mention. 

As reported in the Kansas City Star, one lot 
in New York City, 1/5 of an acre, which 15 years 
ago sold for $9,000,000.00 would be equal in value 
to a farm of 90,000 acres at $100.00 per acre, 


50 Conitructive Democracy 

would make a farm one mile wide by 153V& miles 
long. 

Now we will suppose that this one-fifth of 
an acre is rented so as to realize a profit of 5% 
a year. How much labor would it take to pay 
it? At $2.50 a day it would require the services 
of one man working continuously, for a period 
of 575 years, 4 months and 13 days, with noth¬ 
ing left to spend for his own necessities; or, in 
other words, it would require 500 men, working 
each day to pay each day's rent. But this is 
not the only lot there. There are thousands of 
them in each large city. Who is it that pays 
this abnormal land rent in these cities which is 
added to the price of goods they buy? The 
farmers and workers. As long as one can get 
pay without work, others must work without 
pay. There is no wealth, except what is made 
by labor. 

What makes the lot referred to so valuable? 
It is valuable because it marks a great center of 
population. The people collectively make its 
value. Then does not this value belong to its 
makers, the people who created it as a common¬ 
wealth value, for public use? It falls into the 
possessor's hands without effort on his part. 
This is a debt that he owes to the public for the 
privilege in which the public guarantees and de¬ 
fends him; this is the ground rent, only, not 
that of the buildings, that is a different matter. 
Buildings are built by man; land is made by the 


Land Rent, Interest and Wages 51 

God of Nature, and is a free gift to us on equit¬ 
able terms for its use by all. 

The first and most sacred duty of the na¬ 
tion is to obey fully the natural ethical rights of 
private property, and to take only for the public 
use the natural public-created values which at¬ 
tach to land, because the holding of this is a 
privilege, of itself. 

Values attach to land by reason of its being 
a special privilege, with the growth and need 
of society, and which the God of Nature pro¬ 
vided for the public use. To fail in carrying out 
the injunction of the God of Nature! is to deny 
individual life, itself, on equal terms, one with 
another. On equitable terms, only, must the 
whole life of the individual depend. 

This denial is what debauched the entire 
world, from road overseer to king, and placed 
every life in a position of self-defense. Even 
the king must play masked, and use legerdemain 
to hold his job. It is only a very few, high- 
towered, who wield the magic wand of rule, that 
are at fault for all of this woe and distress. 
Such conditions create both master and slave, 
and the masters themselves are but the slaves 
of their own creating. Then we wonder why 
man is not good! 

In “The High Cost of Living,” a work gotten 
out by Mr. Frederick C. Howe, Ph.LLD., the 
question is asked: “How can we break up the 
200.000,000 acres held in great estates and throw 


52 


Constructive Democracy 


open to use the 400,000,000 acres enclosed in 
farms, but not cultivated by the owners, and 
making a total of 600,000,000 acres ?” 

The more we tax goods the higher they go. 
The more we tax land values the cheaper land 
will be; that is the solution of the whole problem. 

Statisticians tell us that 65% of the wealth 
of the country is in the possession of 3% of the 
people. This is the group that is getting nearly 
all of the high land rentals. This group is able 
to get what it does from the owners of the land 
in an almost invisible way. Few land owners 
are able to see how it is done, but they can feel 
it readily. The method is absolutely invisible to 
those who do not understand the natural law 
of taxation, which shows clearly that 95% of 
the people will be benefited by the natural eqm 
able law of taxation—95% to 5%—yet the 5% 
controls the 95%, because we do not think and 
act for ourselves, but depend on the promises of 
others. 

The Causes and Cure of Business 
Depressions. 

Taxation of Production and Consumption and Non-taxation 
of Values Created by the Community the Principal 
Causes—the Road to Industrial Freedom. 

(Herbert J. Browne in the “Dearborn Independent”) 

“A clear understanding of the effect of taxes as now 
imposed or withheld will explain fully the causes of busi¬ 
ness depressions, foreclosures, failures and economic 
troubles generally. * * * 

“A tax on a bond, stock certificate, note, bank deposit, 
or mortgage is a tax on the mere paper evidence of title, 
the actual property being elsewhere and already taxed. 
So this class of taxes makes double taxation.A tax 



Land Rent, Interest and Wages 53 

which rests on an individual directly, whether called a poll 
tax or by some other name cannot be shifted. The person 

has it to pay. For the same reason taxes on food 

products weigh too heavily on the poor, who eat practically 
as much as the wealthy, and are thus disproportionately 

high.The same principle applies to all taxes, whether 

tariff, internal revenue, or state and local, on all articles 

of food, wearing apparel, furniture, and so on. It is 

estimated that the ‘snow ball’ elements of multiple taxa¬ 
tion, as here in part illustrated, add 25 per cent to the cost 
of living. They never stop. They recur endlessly. 

* * * 

“Now, take another class of property, the anthracite 
coal fields of Pennsylvania. They underlie some 360,000 
acres of surface, are less than one-tenth developed, the rest 
in the condition in which the Almighty laid them down a 
million or more years ago. They are taxed at the rate 
of wild land usually, and are worth from $20,000 to 
$150,000 an acre. Four railroad corporations and a few 
private concerns and estates, all closely affiliated, own this 
entire deposit. During the World War while the Federal 
Government was taking pennies from children for soda 
water, the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania doubled 
in value from six billions to twelve billions of dollars, and 
that vast increment of wealth contributed not one cent to 
the nation in its hour of need. 

* * * 

“So long as the taxes are thus unscientifically and un¬ 
justly imposed, so long as the values which are publicly 
created are privately absorbed, so long will commercial 
depressions recur.” 

—From The Bulletin, Chicago, June, 1923. 
Is it not well worth while for farmers, fac¬ 
tory hands, laboring men and business men to 
give 30 minutes' study each day for from 30 to 
40 days, to the subject, and learn this science? 
That is all that is necessary, to understand it. 
Any school boy who is 13 years old can under¬ 
stand it, as it is as simple as the multiplication 
table. The world will not long remain as it is 
now. Nothing short of true equity that can bet- 





54 


Constructive Democracy 


ter conditions after we have reached the station 
of science we have. That is why old and form¬ 
er methods will never meet the requirements. 
That is what makes former methods useless for 
future consideration. 

Shall men forever be ruled by passion, im¬ 
pulse, idolatry, legerdemain, black art of diplo¬ 
macy or faith without understanding? All of 
these factors enter! into the play which we call 
“politics.” Yet they are the extreme opposite 
of politics—the worst abuse of the term. Brush 
all this aside! Let reason take up the scepter 
and be paramount! 

As there are only three natural divisions in 
the production of wealth, the first taken is the 
land rent, the second is interest on capital, and 
the third and last is wages. If wages must be 
increased, then there is nothing from which to 
take this increase except land rent, as interest 
is already at a minimum. Hence wages cannot 
be increased except by a lowering of land rents. 










































I 








I 


s 







ARTICLE V. 


MONEY IS NEITHER WEALTH, WAGES, NOR 
CAPITAL, AS USUALLY ACCEPTED 
AND UNDERSTOOD. 

M ONEY, of itself, is neither wealth, wages 
nor capital. Money is only a standard 
measure unit, by which to measure values; it 
is a certificate of credit; a convenience in the 
natural process of co-operation in production, 
exchange and division of wealth; money is the 
natural law of mathematics, legalized and applied 
to business; it is purely fiat and prescript, the 
same as a rule that measures length, or as the 
bushel measures quantity, or as a clock measures 
time. Money enables us to measure value; it is 
a spiritual instrument. 

Gold, silver, and paper are not money; they 
are the material substances on which fiat pre¬ 
script is described. Money, of itself, is an in¬ 
visible power given by legislation, and cannot 
be seen by the physical eyes of flesh, but only 
by the mental eyes of reason can it be compre¬ 
hended. 

Wages are the product and fruit of one's 
own labor, just as clothing is the product of the 
labor of the tailor, housing of the carpenter, and 
corn, wheat, cattle or hogs, of the farmer. These 
products are both wealth and wages, and the 
tool that is used to produce wages and wealth is 


58 Constructive Democracy 

capital. The wear-out of the tools is interest 
on capital. 

It is often stated that the World War cost 
enormous amounts of money. It did not cost 
any money at all. Its only cost was labor, life 
and grief, wealth expressed in terms of money, 
which may be misleading, because we do not 
teach the science of politics in places of learn¬ 
ing. We use the term, “money,” to express the 
amount of labor value or wealth. 

For instance, a contractor, Mr. Smith, hires 
Mr. Jones, who is a carpenter, agreeing to pay 
him $5.00 a day. On Saturday, the end of a 
week, Mr. Smith hands Jones $30.00 for 6 days’ 
labor. This is not his wages; it is a credit 
and measure, which enables him to exchange his 
wages in housing for those of coffee, sugar and 
clothing. 

He goes to the stores to exchange his $30.00 
for coffee, sugar and clothing; there is where 
the mystery lies. It costs only two days’ labor 
to produce all that he gets for his six days’ labor, 
all the way from the producer to the consumer. 
In the process of exchange he loses about 
66 2/3% on the dollar of what his labor pro¬ 
duces. How does this take place and who gets 
the rake-off? He has been robbed of four days’ 
labor. 

This is how the mystery takes place: The 
goods passes through several hands in the proc¬ 
ess of manufacture and sale—it passes from 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 59 

manufacturer to dealers, from producer to con¬ 
sumer. Each one must pay abnormal land rents, 
occupation tax, merchants' taxes, city licenses, 
and personal taxes; besides these, much of the 
goods is affected by the tariff or by income 
taxes. All of them are consumptive taxes for 
thej consumer to pay. Adding all of these land 
rents and taxes, from producer to consumer, to¬ 
gether, we find that there is from 25 to 50 
times and kinds, all added together, and shifted 
to the consumers to pay. The joke is on him, 
because he consumes the goods and is unable to 
shift the taxes farther. 

In all mercantile business transactions, no 
matter by whom, nor when nor where, this same 
robbery takes place. 

As long as we raise the public money by 
consumptive taxation, this will be the case. 
Don’t forget that, Mr. Farmer, Ordinary Busi¬ 
ness Man, Factory Worker, and Laborer! When 
you inform yourself and see the facts, then you 
will see the uselessness of farm blockading, non- 
partisan leaguing, co-operating in buying and 
selling, or of obtaining cheap interest! rates, or 
of striking, all of which are only a waste of 
time; of following witty job-hunters and office- 
seekers. All you get is to pay them well, after 
they get you nowhere! Fighting effects and 
not causes is useless. This robbery is caused by 
inequitable taxation, and the only way it may 
be corrected is by equitable taxation. 


60 


Constructive Democracy 


As true as the sun is the center, soul and 
life of the solar system, so is just and equitable 
taxation the first fundamental foundation prin¬ 
ciple, soul and life center of a just and prosper¬ 
ous social system. Equity of taxation is the first 
corner stone upon which civilization must rest, 
and which must be placed first, in first's place 
first, as all remaining functionary duties and 
principles must depend upon it to properly func¬ 
tion; all except one, government ownership and 
operation of all natural public utilities. These 
two are the first and second prime factors, which 
are all the fundamentals there are, after the 
nation has been created, of all natural govern¬ 
ment, nation, state, county and municipal. Read 
with cam and see for yourself. Your own in¬ 
ternal, intellectual man will seldom betray his 
trust, and a safer party is seldom found, even 
though you respect him but little and others as 
great. 

We often read and hear it said that wages 
are higher now than ever before. That is a 
great mistake. While farmers and laborers do 
receive a greater amount of money than in form¬ 
er times, they receive far less in proportion to 
the amount of wealth and value than in former 
times, making wages and earnings less than ever 
before, even though the farmer owns his farm 
free) of debt; and the same is true, if he is a 
laborer in any line of industry. 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 61 

When we have a wrong taxation system, it 
causes abnormally high prices of land and cor¬ 
responding high rents, which is the source upon 
which big banking and high financiering rests 
its feet and in which it roots; and it is the arti¬ 
ficial, abnormal land values that are both the 
source and security that create many mortgages 
and much speculation, which deprives the farm¬ 
er, the business man and the laborer of over 
65% on the dollar of what he is now producing. 

It does seem that this is hard for farmers, 
business men and laborers to see; that the higher 
the prices of land go the less will wages and 
earnings be, because the artificial prices of land, 
caused by wrong taxation, then becomes assets, 
security and source of what we call interest-bear¬ 
ing securities, and the products of their labor is 
the liability from which bankers, speculators and 
combines exact unearned dividends, but is only 
usury, this is not interest; interest is the cost 
and wear-out of capital only. Capital is the tools 
of production, a different thing altogether. 

From this it should be easily seen that the 
more science develops, the more is labor dis¬ 
placed, and the higher will be the price of land, 
because of wrong taxation, which increases the 
power of bank and combine exploit. 

This fact should never be lost sight of, that 
all of this enormous value that is exploited from 
the producers by land monopoly, banking and 
combines, do not all remain in the possession of 


62 


Constructive Democracy 


these exploiters, because of the power to perpet¬ 
uate this wrong, a great source of waste is cre¬ 
ated, sustaining of great navies, armies, Secret 
Service, tariff collectors, license, internal reve¬ 
nues, courts, fines, jails and penitentiaries, be¬ 
sides much more not necessary to bring in here, 
from the fact of wrong taxation, which turns 
industry out of its natural channels into un¬ 
natural courses, which creates; fraud and force, 
and if not corrected by administering of equity, 
until every department of human endeavor per¬ 
meates with despotism, and is destroyed of its 
own neglect. 

That is why bankers must have the power 
to expand and contract the volume of money of 
the country. Otherwise, speculation of land 
would run away with itself and smash civiliza¬ 
tion at once. The bankers are the artificial 
equilibrium; but this will not last long and must 
collapse, as it is unnatural. \ 

The end of this dispensation is here now. 
The thing to do is to bring into play in the 
game of life, equitable taxation. But those who 
are on the people’s back will do anything but get 
off. 

Because of existing wrong taxation, after 
highly developed science of production has been 
brought into use, labor is displaced and ab¬ 
normal land rents develop, the rightful wages 
of the farmer, laborer, factory worker, and or¬ 
dinary business man are absorbed by advancing 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 63 

land rents. The high land rents and consump¬ 
tive taxes are deducted from their earnings when 
they buy goods, and the markets are controlled 
when they sell their products or when employed; 
which leaves them a very much smaller propor¬ 
tion, on the dollar, of what they produce now, 
than ever before. 

Seventy years ago, when land was cheap 
and rents were low, the farmers and laborers 
received from 75% to 85% on the dollar of what 
their laboij produced. But now, since prices of 
land have advanced to abnormal height, this in¬ 
creased price absorbs their wages, leaving them 
only from 15% to 85% on the dollar of what 
their labor produces. This takes away from the 
owners of land and all workers from 65% to 85% 
of wages and earnings, by speculating and plac¬ 
ing mortgages on this artificial value that at¬ 
taches to land, and is caused by inequitable tax¬ 
ation. That is what is consuming the workers 
and burning them up as chaff. 

75 years ago the proportion 
left as wages was about. .75% to 85% av. 80% 
Now the proportion is only 
from.15% to 35% av. 25% 


This shows that wages have 
come down in the past 75 

years 55% on the dollar.on an av. 55% 

It is clear that wages have come down from 
80% to 25% on the dollar of what producers 





64 


Constructive Democracy 


produced in the past 75 years. The only reason 
that production can exist now is that they can 
produce more and faster by improved methods 
of science, and improving stock, vegetables, fruit, 
grain and grass. 

While we are under inequitable taxation, the 
higher science develops, the more impossible life 
and prosperity will become, until the stage of 
the self-destruction of both man and nation is 
reached, if not corrected by equitable taxation. 
Equitable taxation is the only thing that has 
the effect of making an equitable division of this 
increasing wealth. 

As long as some are able to get dollars with¬ 
out work, others will have to work without pay. 
Wealth and property can come only by labor. 
Land is not property, but is one of the sources 
from which it comes. Labor is the other factor. 

I find great numbers of honest, earnest and 
good citizens, many of great ability and wealth, 
who are placing the blame of present wrong on 
what they call, “wrong money system, and bad 
bank law.” To attempt to correct our present 
wrongs by doctoring either would be useless, 
foolish and disastrous beyond measure. It would 
be as well to attempt the building of a great 
brick smokestack from the top downward, which 
would only be doctoring the effect, or the symp¬ 
toms and not the disease or the cause. 

Our troubles do not come from wrong bank 
law and money system. Our bank rules and 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 65 

money are as good as can be had under wrong 
taxation. Wrong taxation is what is making 
banking laws what they are now. 

There must be natural government before 
artificial bank and money rules or law. The 
government must first place the stone of equity, 
as the first, fundamental foundation stone, in 
first’s place, first. Then the bank rules will be 
useless and spontaneously die, as a result. 

Our trouble comes from an enormous golden 
egg, which is being laid by the goose, and it is 
hatched in an inequitable tax incubator. This 
egg is enormous; it is not less in value than 50% 
of the entire labor product of the United States. 
50% of the entire labor production of the whole 
earth resolves itself into unearned incomes, and 
this is taken as land rents, by those to whom it 
does not belong. This is what is making the 
trouble. Money is used only to measure and 
transfer this value, as well as others. Bank rules 
are made to get the egg, and to save the goose, 
and at the same time keep her from getting wise. 

As long as we have inequitable taxation civ¬ 
ilization is in great danger of running away, of 
itself, by over-speculation in land. For this rea¬ 
son the volume of money must be carefully con¬ 
trolled. If the volume of money became too 
great, then speculation in land would raise the 
prices higher and higher until we should reach 
the point and collapse, wrecking civilization. On 
the other hand, if the volume became too small, 


66 


Constructive Democracy 


then the markets, industry and commerce would 
become stagnated. Strikes, collapse and revolu¬ 
tion would smash civilization. One bursts from 
pressure from without, while the other bursts 
from pressure from within. It is clear, plain and 
easy to see, if we will but stop to look, that in¬ 
equitable taxation places civilization between the 
devil and an abyss. 

To be able to control the volume of money so 
as to hold this equilibrium of the economic con¬ 
ditions of a nation is a very delicate and difficult 
matter. In fact the state of affairs, as they are 
now, cannot last long. The world do move. Un¬ 
seen and unexpected difficulties are bound to 
arise, when artificial foundations are set up, to 
take the place of natural law and order. Is not 
this enough to indicate that the nation and world 
are in a smelting pot and state of travail for the 
birth of a new day? The old world is already 
history of the past, and cannot be set back on 
the old false foundations. 

When the great bankers must call on Con¬ 
gress, seeking more elastic power and control to 
expand or contract the currency of the nation, 
has not this natural public function been delegat¬ 
ed to the hands of private banking associations, 
or the Federal Reserve Board ? Is this not a spe¬ 
cial privilege, even though the government has 
appointed delegates on this board as angels of 
the public interests and safety? Is this not a 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 67 

most gigantic responsibility for those gentlemen 
to assume? Was it really necessary to do this? 

Yes, this is a very urgent necessity that 
must be provided for, in order to evade and put 
off just and equitable taxation, so they may se¬ 
cure the golden egg the goose lays—the golden 
egg, which is the abnormal land rent from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. It is not less than 50% 
on the dollar in value, of the entire wealth pro¬ 
duced each year in the United States. This is 
what makes both millionaires and tramps, and the 
banking rules as they now are. 

As long as we have inequitable taxation we 
must also have inequitable and wrong bank rules, 
in order to evade as much as possible panics and 
economic disturbances, and at the same time 
keep the geese from getting wise on the power 
of equitable taxation, the chief stone of the arch, 
and the covenant for the birth of a new day. 

Abnormally high and unnatural land rents 
are caused by wrong taxation, and are taken by 
private persons for private use; by persons to 
whom they do not belong. That is what is de¬ 
stroying civilization, and what causes what we 
regard as wrong bank law. The banking laws 
are a necessary evil—a power of caprice and 
whim. To doctor this by legislating and lower 
rate of interest or to regulate the volume of 
money by some other arbitrary method would 
only bring immediate catastrophe more terrible 
than ever yet happened. 


68 


Constructive Democracy 


Under existing conditions, this power had to 
be placed in the control of somebody, the more 
responsible and reliable the better for all, even 
though this be a power of caprice and whim. 
Farmers, labor unions or Congress could not well 
do this, from the fact that few understand the 
science of politics, as it is not taught in places 
of learning, nor do the bankers show that they 
understand this any better than the man in the 
ditch; but they are the only ones that keep their 
fingers on the public pulse continuously, which 
qualifies them best, to exercise this control, more 
safely than any other body could; and it gives us 
time to get wise. 

We must have bank law or rules, good or 
bad, as we may think them, as they now are, un¬ 
til we become intelligent enough to be just and 
fair; then we shall be able to bring into play 
equitable taxation of land values for public pur¬ 
poses, only. This applies to municipal, county, 
state and nation. Then will the bad bank rules 
die spontaneously, and be of little! or no further 
use, as they will then injure no one. It is the 
unnatural land rent that is destroying us, not the 
bank laws. 

When equitable taxation has been brought 
into play, artificial land values will disappear, 
and so will the making of mortgages, which rests 
on artificial land values. And when artificial 
land values have disappeared, land will be nearly 
as cheap as the air that we breathe and the 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 69 

water that we drink. Why should it not be 
free? Land is not property, like things pro¬ 
duced by human energy. Property is produced 
by labor, while land is made by the will of the 
Qod of Nature, and given to man free, as a place 
of abode and source from which to produce 
wealth, which is life itself. Think of the babies 
born not of their own volition, called into being 
by the God of Nature, then think what it means 
to deny those children a place to rest the soles 
of their feet. Yet we say that we are created in 
the image of our Creator! Are we Christians? 
Some may be reluctant to have this change come, 
but it must come, or all flesh is lost. It not this 
the salvation for which Jesus and the prophets 
stood ? 

Alteration or changing of bank rules would 
not have the necessary effect of lowering land 
values, and free the use of land, therefore would 
not improve economic conditions, but would re¬ 
sult in disastrous conditions. Chimneys cannot 
be built from the top downwards, but must be 
built from the bottom upwards. Equitable tax¬ 
ation is the first foundation, which must be 
placed in first’s place first. After that all re¬ 
maining governmental functions will automatic¬ 
ally, like cogs in a machine, fall into their proper 
place spontaneously. Politics is an exact science 
and must be done in numerical order in keeping 
with natural law and order. 


70 


Constructive Democracy 


There may be thousands of ways to do a 
thing wrong, but there is only one way to do a 
thing right. When a thing is straight God could 
not make it straighter. 

Probably the bankers understand, better 
than any other body of people, the artificial 
statutory banking laws or rules; but do the bank¬ 
ers understand the natural law with which the 
artificial must come into conflict and clash ? 
When these laws are not equitably, true the na¬ 
tion may by legislation limit the rate of interest, 
then declare all charges over that limit to be 
usury and excessive. That is not what the term, 
“usury” means. 

Usury is the taking, by legislative means, of 
what, by nature does not belong to the taker. It 
means taking something for nothing—the taking 
of land rent by private parties for private use is 
usury. 

Land rent is a natural public commonwealth 
—created value in mass collectively undivided, 
and is the natural tax which should be taken by 
the nation, state and municipality, only, for the 
public use. And when taken by private parties, 
it becomes usury, in spite of legislation, legalized 
exploitation and usury. Can legislation make a 
wrong thing right? Can man make fundamental 
law? That can come only from the will of the 
nature, God itself. 

Neh. 5:11-12: “Restore, I pray you, to them, 
even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 71 

olive yards, and their houses, also the hun¬ 
dredth part of the money, and of the corn, the 
wine, and oil, that ye exact of them. Then said 
they, we will restore them and will require noth¬ 
ing of them; so will we do as thou sayest. Then 
I called the priests, and took an oath of them, 
that they should do according to this promise.” 
Read the whole of this chapter; it is well worth 
reading. Which shows that if it be only 1% it 
is usury when it is from land rent. 

Bankers get but very little interest on the 
money that they loan. What they exact is the 
land rents, which are the natural taxes and also 
the rightful wages of the producers in all lines 
of industry. That is why it is usury, but it is 
misnamed “interest.” Things are not always 
what their labels indicate them to be. 

Interest is the cost and wear-out of capital. 
Capital is the tools used in the production of 
wealth. Interest, properly, is the cost of all kinds 
of machinery, or tools, that wear out and must 
be repaired and replaced. How much of this cost 
does the banker get? 

Wrong methods of taxation create abnorm¬ 
ally high land rents, which are dangerous to eco¬ 
nomic conditions. To meet these dangerous con¬ 
ditions bank rules or laws are made, so that they 
may contract or expand the volume of money, at 
will, to avert, as much as possible, ruinous panics 
and revolutionary smashups, which also make the 
great armies and navies. All three of them are 


72 


Constructive Democracy 


only necessary evils, caused by this same in¬ 
equitable taxation. From this it may be clearly 
seen that it is not the bank laws that are work¬ 
ing hardship, but it is that which makes such 
bank laws necessary—which is wrong taxation. 
Correct that first and then these bank rules will 
spontaneously die of themselves, because they 
will be unnecessary. 

Again, one may think that he can beat the 
game by selling his estate; that he cannot do, be¬ 
cause over and above 65% on the dollar of what 
he spends is taken by the high and abnormal 
land rents, which are added to the cost of what¬ 
ever he buys; besides, there are yet the consump¬ 
tive taxes that are added on top of the other, and 
also the excessive freight rates. 

It will pay those who feel that they are well- 
to-do to help get equity and justice, as it must 
come, and if we do not permit this in the civil 
way of democracy, then it must come in the de¬ 
structive way of famines and bloodshed; and it 
must come early; there is no time tot be lost, as 
the end of the old world is a thing of the past, 
already. 

Ownership of the land gives special powers, 
and enables the land owners to exact land rent. 
This power to exact and possibly of exploit 
makes the land owner a master and king over the 
parcel he owns, and makes land ownership a spe¬ 
cial privilege; inasmuch as land is not, properly, 
property; in that it was never made by man, and 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 73 

is a free gift to all men, from the God of Nature 
—undivided. To make this division just and fair 
to all, it must be done by the democratic state, 
only. The state must guarantee and protect this 
•—special privilege. For this work and much else, 
the state is put to expense. The All-wise God of 
Nature knew this and provided a natural source 
for this public expense. 

As a result of this extended privilege, un¬ 
earned land rents accrue and fall into the hands 
of the possessor, without any effort on his part; 
this he owes to the state in payment of the spe¬ 
cial privilege. After this division of the land has 
taken place a new generation is born, who, by 
nature, have the same rights as those who pre¬ 
ceded! them in birth, in which they were not a 
party in relinquishing their rights. In order to 
protect the later-born in their natural, equitable 
rights, by birth, it is the duty of the states to 
collect this unearned increment, by taxation of 
land values, alone, which is the two-edged sword 
of truth and equity, which will set and keep all 
men free and equal, in the use of the land, as 
this kills what is the special privilege, and makes 
this privilege equitable. 

This is the most sacred duty of the state. 
To fail of this is to give sanction to the already 
rich and overgrown, to rob babies not yet born. 

To declare, stand, act, work and sacrifice for 
this corrective principle is to be truly patriotic 
and American, Christian, and to work for the 


74 Constructive Democracy 

glory of the Stars and Stripes. Is it not well 
worth while? 

What may be clearly seen is that the great 
banks, large landed estates, combines and trusts 
are getting the greater portion of this high land 
rent, from the entire country, to their own dan¬ 
ger and determent; that they are misnaming this 
“interest”; that a little honest thought will show 
plainly that it is usury, and that the more science 
brings into production the higher will the prices 
of land rent mount, and the more impossible will 
life, business and prosperity become. This is 
what brought on the World War; it is the pres¬ 
sing demand for the passing of feudalism in dis¬ 
guise. 

We may say or think what we please about 
wrong money systems and bad banking rules; 
they are very likely the best that can be had un¬ 
der present wrong methods of taxation. The 
bankers have got their ears to the ground and 
their fingers to the public pulse, and are safer 
for the public thap any other group or clique 
who do not understand the lately-discovered 
science of politics. We shall not get justice nor 
relief until we become fair and wiser. Should 
we fail in this we are destined to go into the 
same state that Russia has, and in which Ger¬ 
many, France, Italy and the Balkans are going. 

The high land values, both in the city and 
country, are the asset and foundation upon which 
the large business and financial interests must 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 75 

rest and plant their feet. The large baking in¬ 
terests, combines and trusts, packers and stock- 
yards, elevators and mills, steel and iron trusts, 
lumber associations; zinc, lead, and copper inter¬ 
ests, silk, wool and cotton manufacturers, and 
those of clothing, as well as the sugar, coffee, 
farm machinery and coal interests, with hun¬ 
dreds of others too numerous to mention, all 
must depend upon abnormally high land rents, 
which destroy natural competition. They work 
in combine and collusion, in order to exploit and 
control the markets, both of buying and selling. 
The outcome must be equitable taxation or the 
death of civilization. There is no other alter¬ 
native. 

Nearly all of the goods above mentioned pass 
through from 2 to 6 of these combines and as¬ 
sociations, between production and consumption, 
each piling on more and more, for the consumer 
to pay. 

The God of Nature cannot and never for¬ 
gives. To disobey natural equity is to be de¬ 
stroyed. Don’t forget Babylon, Persia, Greece 
and Rome. When the end came, the people died 
like rats in fields, roads and forests. There was 
no forgiveness. The penalty must always be 
paid. 

The greatest and wisest of men, no matter 
how powerful, great and strong in armies, navies 
and wealth are only burdens of expense. The 
more the force the hastier will be the end. When 


76 


Constructive Democracy- 


Conditions within are not right they are de¬ 
stroyed from within. That is the law of nature. 
Destruction docs not come from without, as 
many believe. Revolutions are not what bring 
the end. When revolution takes place the end 
has already been passed. There was something 
that should have been done that was left undone. 

Jesus once asked, “What will you do when 
the end comes ?” Then thanked God because the 
wise could not see this, and babies could. 

Money is Not Wealth, as Many Believe. 

Suppose the nation resolved to issue $110,- 
000,000.00 in legal tender currency, based on 
gold, which would be $1,000.00 to each person on 
a per capita basis, then to distribute the same 
free to each person in the nation. Would this 
add any more wealth to the nation? Not a 
cent’s worth would be added. There is no such 
thing as wealth, except what is produced by 
labor applied to land directly or indirectly. 
Wealth cannot be created by legislation, though 
conditions may be made favorable or unfavorable, 
the work of legerdemain—of wizards. 

Some may ask, “What if this issue were of 
gold?” Yes, gold is wealth, but gold is not 
money, of itself. Money is fiat created by legis¬ 
lation, artificial power, impossible of being seen 
by; eyes of flesh; but may be comprehended by 
eyes of reason, only. We may use gold or paper 
to prescribe its units of measure and authority, 
but as here shown, money is neither wealth, 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 77 

wages nor capital; it is only the power of mathe¬ 
matics, used as a convenience, and is brought in¬ 
to natural co-operative business as a meter or 
measure of wealth, in the process of production, 
exchange and division of wealth; it is a credit 
which may be given in exchange for wealth; it 
is only the product of labor, that is, wages, 
wealth and capital. 

Some will say tax land values only and let 
those with large amounts on money mortgages 
and bonds, like Rockefeller, Morgan, Drexel and 
Mellon, escape paying taxes? Those who hold 
that view fail to see that they escape, as it is 
now; they seem to pay now, when they go to the 
tax collector and get a receipt for it, but others 
provide them with what they pay, as their mort¬ 
gages and securities rest on abnormal land 
values, all over the country. They collect what 
they call interest, but it is not interest, but 
usury. This abnormal land rent which they get 
is what they pay with. It is really the rightful 
earnings and wages of farmers, business men 
and laborers. Then this land rent is added to 
the price of goods the consumers must buy, 
which is making the high cost of living; it is 
not less than 60% on the dollar added to the 
price of goods which consumers must pay, and 
on top of it there is from 20 to 50 different kinds 
of consumptive taxes and excessive freight rates. 

Thus it may be seen that the industrial 
farmer, common business man and laborer do not 


78 


Constructive Democracy 


receive any more than from 15% to 20% on the 
dollar of what they are now producing. 

As a rule the very wealthy have very little 
cash on hand to pay, as their wealth usually con¬ 
sists of investments in the natural resources, or 
securities that rest on these resources—that is, 
the artificial land values, which are one and the 
same thing. The price of land is the exploiting 
power, it gives the possessor—but the premium 
exacted seldom remains with the owners of the 
land. As that creates the source of unearned in¬ 
comes, banking and speculation, gambling on the 
products of farmers and industry. 

Raise all taxes for all public purposes from 
land values only; then will land be free and 
nearly without price, except the annual tax; then 
land will be nearly as cheap as atmosphere and 
sunshine; then will speculation and money-lend¬ 
ing on artificial land values disappear; then no 
one will desire to have any more land than he 
needs for his own use; then money and monopoly 
cannot injure anyone; then wages will become 
normal and be increased not less than 60% over 
what they are now. Then peasant and tenant 
farming will come to a close. 

The higher the tax on land values, the 
cheaper will be the price of land. The effect on 
goods is just the opposite. The higher the tax 
on goods and personal property, the higher will 
the price go. 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 79 

Over twenty years ago official statistics 
showed that the workers produced about $20.00 
a day, and got as earnings wages less than $2.00. 
Who got the $18.00? 

As reported by the Kansas City Journal, No¬ 
vember 4, 1922: 

Lindsborg, Kas., Nov. 3—J. Ogden Armour of Chi¬ 
cago, was characterized as the “boss gambler” of the 
grain exchange, by Senator Arthur Capper, who spoke 
here today. Armour has made more profits through the 
manipulation of the grain markets in the last three years 
than all of the wheat growers of the ‘Middle Western 
states, the Senator declared. 

This can never be governed by artificial 
legislative regulation. Equitable taxation only 
will remedy this wrong. 

The higher the prices of land become the 
greater will be the proportion that land owners 
themselves must lose and give over to banking 
and high financial speculators, as the abnormal 
land rents are added to the price of what they 
must buy, and which places bankers and high 
financial speculators in a position to dictate, ar¬ 
bitrarily, and control the markets on what the 
producers must sell and buy. Thus the abnorm¬ 
al, artificial land value is an asset and earning 
capacity of the big bankers and of high finan¬ 
ciers—the exploiting foundation upon which their 
feet rest and are rooted, which makes the own¬ 
ers of land the liability and the artificial land 
value an asset, and enslaves the operative farm¬ 
er, ordinary business man and laborer, thus cre¬ 
ating a few men of great and of abnormal power, 


80 


Constructive Democracy 


who, at intervals, lose the economic equiliborative 
power and break down, producing panics and 
revolutionary spirit and war. 

It is not the great amount of cash—o^ dol¬ 
lars—that the wealthy have that injures men, as 
each usually has only a small amount of cash; 
but it is the great amount of high and abnormal¬ 
ly-priced land that is working the injury, because 
the land values make it possible for each single 
dollar to create from $1.00 to $20.00 of mort¬ 
gages in a short period of time; and the mort¬ 
gages draw about 6% usury, besides commis¬ 
sions as we have $150,000,000,000.00 worth of 
abnormal land values. Fully one-fourth or more 
of this is always covered by mortgages, which 
draw about 5% usury, misnamed interest. This 
is paid by the working farmers, laborers and 
men employed in all lines of industry. Thus a 
continual flow of usury concentrates the money 
in the great central banks, toj be brought back 
into circulation by speculators, big business and 
combines that corner and control the markets of 
both buying and selling, too intricately and ob¬ 
scurely for description or comprehension. Every 
avenue, from beggar to master, is permeated by 
the effect of this—a house of babel. 

By raising all taxes from land values, only, 
exclusive of improvements, artificial land values 
will disappear, and there will be no more loaning 
money on land, which will make land as free as 
air and sunshine to all. The only cost will be 


Money, Neither Wages, Wealth Nor Capital 81 

the natural annual taxes. Then there will be no 
more cry about bad banking laws and money 
systems; there will be fewer banks, because they 
will not be needed; then all will be home own¬ 
ers—all may sit under their own vine and fig- 
tree, and no one will molest them nor make them 
afraid. 

But it is so much easier to plow corn, har¬ 
vest and make hay than it is to think and rea¬ 
son with an obscure question, and study a lit¬ 
tle science, even though the sunbeams hail down. 
We can wait for men of position and office- 
seekers, who so gladly tell us what to do—tell 
us with fog-horns and political jazz—and who 
claim to be our friends, and who appear so 
affable and wise. 

Faith in party organization without under¬ 
standing the principles of equitable taxation is 
to hand-cuff, ball and chain reason in darkness 
and superstition. Faith without reason is be¬ 
neath animal instinct. 

Did you ever hesitate and think that as 
long as there are artificial land values it is pos¬ 
sible for one single dollar to create from $1.00 
to $250.00 worth of mortgages, or what we call 
“interest-bearing securities, 1 ” in the course of 
one year? Then think what can be done with 
$4,000,000,000 of money and $150,000,000,000 
worth of artificial land values, to speculate on 
and draw unearned incomes from. 


82 


Constructive Democracy 


This $150,000,000,000 worth of artificial land 
values, on which may rest 65 billion dollars worth 
of usury securities, besides the non-taxable bonds, 
county, state, and municipal debts. Taxation of 
land values are the only tax that all economists 
agree cannot be shifted to others to pay, and 
that stay put. 

So long as the land values are not taken for 
public use by equitable taxation, then abnormal 
prices of land and its rents develops, and as a 
result becomes assets and source for big bank¬ 
ing, combines and trusts to capitalize, and to 
exact and to draw unearned incomes, which 
causes the products of farmers, factories, labor 
and business to become the liability and are ex¬ 
ploited, that is what is consuming them all as 
snowballs in hades, after reaching our present 
high stage of science and discovery. 


ARTICLE VI. 


THE THREE GREAT DISCOVERIES 
HIGHLY DEVELOPED MACHINERY, CHEMISTRY 
AND THE SCIENCE OF POLITICAL ETHICS. 

T HESE three lines of discovery have brought 
the old world to an abrupt end, and is what 
is making a pressing demand for the birth of 
the new day. When man's power of production 
has been increased, it also follows that the 
power of consumption must be increased to 
about the same corresponding ratio, so as to 
keep pace with that of production. If we fail 
in that we are bound to be overwhelmed by 
panics, catastrophies, destitution, war and final 
dissolution. 

These three lines and achievements have 
completely revolutionized former programs, ideals 
and methods; and to meet the new conditions, 
new ideas, means and methods must be ushered 
into play, as the old can no further meet the 
requirements. The new birth and new day de¬ 
mands our most sincere attention. 

The first two of these discoveries, machin¬ 
ery and chemistry, have the effect to increase 
man’s power of production to a point of about 
300 times as great as it was 100 years ago, but 
neither of these factors have the affect to in¬ 
crease consumption or to make an equitable di¬ 
vision of this increasing wealth that these two 


84 


Constructive Democracy 


sciences have brought to man, for that reason it 
follows that the science of political ethics, which 
is the third and last of these sciences, must also 
be brought into play, in order to make an equit¬ 
able division of this increasing wealth, that 
science brings, as that only can or will have the 
effect to increase consumption at a corresponding 
ratio, with that of production. To fail of bring¬ 
ing this equity, then it must be burned up and 
consumed by militarism, war and dissolution. 

Is patriotism love of country and home 
though clothed with inequity and injustice, or is 
it love of country and home clothed with equity 
and justice, in time of peace and not invaded? 

When production increases, it naturally fol¬ 
lows that consumption should also increase in 
about the same ratio, correlatively. If this fails, 
civilization is impossible; it cannot live. When 
the first two of these sciences are brought into 
use, the third one, also, must be brought into 
full play, because it alone will have the effect 
of increasing consumption, which, as said before, 
must keep pace with production. 

The lately discovered Science of Politics, 
which deals with equitable taxation and the na¬ 
tionalization of all public utilities, removes all 
barriers that interfere with production, division, 
exchange and transportation, all of which have 
the effect of increasing consumption. And all 
interference must be removed before voluntary 
co-operation of production, exchange and an 


The Three Great Discoveries 


85 


equitable division of wealth can possibly take 
place, which constitutes civilization. Failure in 
this means barbarism, only. 

All of the leading nations of the world have 
brought the first two of the sciences, machinery 
and chemistry, into use. And they are being 
worked over-time, as fast as discovered. But the 
third, the Science of Political Ethics, the nations 
absolutely evade and refuse to bring into play in 
the hazardous game of life. For the past thirty 
years, by this refusal, the world has lost much 
of its equilibrium. Therein is the underlying 
cause of the World War. 

These three lines of discoveries are what 
have transformed the old into a new world. The 
third one of these sciences, which is the natural 
relative equilibrator of the first two described, 
is the trinity of individual commercial co-opera¬ 
tion and national life. 

To endeavor to set the world back on old 
methods and former foundations is only to in¬ 
vite and repeat another and worse catastrophe 
than that through which we have just passed. 
Jesus asked, “What will you do when the end 
comes ?” 

The birth of a new day demands our atten¬ 
tion. War, starvation, pestilence, and famine, 
amidst the greatest massive wealth and fortunes 
the world ever knew are but the sign of the end. 
The World War was the beckoning hand of na¬ 
ture's call for the new day and advancing civiliza- 


86 


Constructive Democracy 


tion; for justice, equity and true liberty. Woe 
to both man and wealth if we do not yield. 

The first two of these modern discoveries 
affect and increase production, only, and do not 
affect consumption at all. When these two are 
brought into use, then to refuse to bring into full 
play the third of these discoveries is to sin 
against the Holy Ghost, which means whole, 
full life; it is to cut the heart and soul out of 
both man and nation, making disaster inevitable. 

How could it be otherwise under present 
conditions, brought about by inequitable taxa¬ 
tion and privately owned natural public utilities 
that rob the producers from 45% to 65% on 
the dollar on what they produce, and which goes 
to abnormally high land rents; besides from 3% 
to 20% more, which goes into consumptive taxa¬ 
tion. Then, on the top of all this are excessive 
freight rates, caused by privately owned natural 
public utilities. These conditions are what create 
wars, panics and artificial regulation, perplexity 
and confusion. Government is simple, plain, and 
easy of understanding when correctly taught. 

Isaiah, 35:8. “But it shall be for those; the 
wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err there¬ 
in.” 

Mr. Emil 0. Jorgenson, to whom we feel 
grateful for this generous sacrifice of time and 
able work in preparing these tables, is a very 
able statistician; he worked eight years compil¬ 
ing these tables from the census reports. 


The Three Great Discoveries 87 

Table No 1 1 shows that the science of ma¬ 
chinery has increased man's power of produc¬ 
tion from 1 to 800 times as great as it was 100 
years ago, in 25 lines of production. 

If we had available statistics, whereby we 
might reckon the increase of power which trans¬ 
portation and such improvements as Mr. Burbank 
has made on fruit, vegetables, grain and grasses, 
they would raise the estimate to a much higher 
figure. In all probability the power of produc¬ 
tion would be raised another dozen points. To 
be safe and conservative, it would be fully 300 
times as great as it was 100 years ago, when 
overland transportation was all by means of 
horses and oxen, without roads and bridges, and 
without railways and steamships, which have in¬ 
creased transportation to enormous proportions. 

Harvesters have taken the place of the 
scythe and reap-hook; steam threshers have 
taken the place of the flail, and steel fingers 
have replaced fingers of flesh. Somewhere the 
flood-gate opens; oil or coal is heaved into the 
furnace. Somewhere else the button is touched, 
then the goods flow, automatically, like water 
from a nozzle. 

Now, under inequitable indirect taxation, 
which causes the price of the land and the land 
rent to rise to abnormal heights, all of this in¬ 
crease in production that science brought falls 
into the possession of only the few—the real 
large bankers, captains of big business and spe- 


88 


Constructive Democracy 


cial privilege—what should be a blessing to all is 
turned into a most terrible curse to both rich 
and poor. There is nothing so demoralizing to 
man as extreme poverty or riches. The victims 
of one must sacrifice honor and virtue to live, 
while the others have the price and can pay for 
dissipation and indulgence, which become con¬ 
tagious and a part of custom, but never with¬ 
out the penalty. 

This enormous increase in wealth-producing 
power should naturally lower prices of goods, 
nearer to a corresponding rate with that pro¬ 
duction ; but this does not take place as it 
should, which shows that prices have increased, 
instead of decreased, as they should have done; 
and which shows clearly the increase of land 
values has absorbed and swallowed up this in¬ 
crease, brought by science and discovery for the 
benefit of all men. 

When taxes are inequitable, if one person 
becomes worth $1,000,000.00 it naturally follows 
that there are 750 persons who have no more 
than the few rags on their backs; and we have 
many who have each 100; millions. Think what 
an army of destitution there is! 

Fig. No. 8 shows that land values raised 
from $25,000,000,000.00 in 1820 to $150,000,000,- 
000.00 in 1920. Beginning to increase in value 
in the early part of the Nineteenth Century, all 
of the natural resources of the! nation, the bare 
land, oil, coal, mineral, timber, water-power, har- 


The Three Great Discoveries 


89 


bor, urban and agricultural, have reached the 
dazzling height of $150,000,000,000.00, which, if 
it were equally divided on a per capita basis, 
would be about $1,545.50 to each person in the 
nation. 

Then, again, add to this land 

values.$150,000,000,000.00 

The national debt, about..... 25,000,000,000.00 

Which brings the two items 

up to.$175,000,000,000.00 

And as 50% of the people or more have no 
land and little or no property of any kind, the 
greater proportion of this liability is, as it were, 
a mortgage on their shoulders, to the amount of 
something like $2,500.00 each. Their chance of 
existence is something like $2,500.00 below zero, 
and they are compelled to pay the land rent on 
about that value, together with consumptive 
taxes, before they are able to feed and clothe 
themselves, as land rent is taken from produc¬ 
tion first. What is left is wages. All of this is 
wages. All of this is paid in advance of wages. 
Have we not arrived at a point where we look at 
grand larceny as a virtue and yet see petty lar¬ 
ceny as a crime ? Grand larceny must cease from 
the top first, before petty larceny can cease 
from below. Does not this show that homogen¬ 
eous order and equity must be brought into na¬ 
tional and political life to have prosperity? 





90 


Constructive Democracy 


Is it strange that prices do not tend down¬ 
ward and fall, with the onward march and in¬ 
creasing science of production? This cannot be 
explained away by hollow theory, as increase of 
population, an explanation that is often heard, 
but which is not true. 

As there is a natural law and equilibrium, 
which is an exact balance between producer and 
consumer, when one alters the other of itself 
correspondingly alters, as each is both producer 
and consumer. Whether equity exists or not, 
that is always at the same and exact ratio, no 
more, no less. 


The Three Great Discoveries 


91 



From “THE BULLETIN” C.ommittee of Manufacturers 
and Merchants on Federal Taxation (Inc.), 
for May, 1922, Chicago, Ill. 

Fig. 3—WITH THE MARCH OF MACHINERY, PRICES OUGHT 

TO FALL 

(From “Report of the Commissioner of Patents,” 1920, Washington, 

D. C.) 

f LSOQOpO INVENTIONS 

I'M000 

ii 

1 , 000,000 -»> 


- 7 so,ooo 

i 

■SOO.OOO - 


\$o,ooo 


0*0 


9X0 1930 


RAPIDITY OP THE MACHINE METHOD OF PRODUCTION AS EMPLOYED 
IN 1895. OVER THE OLD HAND METHOD EMPLOYED 
PREVIOUS TO THAT TIME 

(Sn Thirteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 
Washington, *D. C. i8q8. Vol. /.) 

TABLE No. I 


Article 

Quantity 

Time re 

Hand method 

quired under 

Machine 
method (1895) 

Ratio 

In favor of 
machine 
method 

Hours 

Min. 

Houra 

Min. 

Boots: Men's . 


100 prs. 

1,439 

40 

154 

5 

9 to 1 

Shoes: Women's . 


100 prs. 

1,025 

20 

80 

22 

13 " l 

Sheeting: Cotton . 


500 yds. 

6,605 


52 

45 

106 '' 1 

Thread: Cotton, sewing 


100 lbs. 

2,895 


39 

17 

74 '* 1 

Hose: Cotton, seamless 


12 prs. 

48a 


1 

44 

279 " 1 

Mittens: Men's woolen 


144 prs. 

1,030 


15 

25 

06 " 1 

Sldrts: Woolen . 


12 prs. 

240 

, 

3 

11 

70 " 1 

Carpet: Brussels . 


1,000 yds. 

4,047 

30 

609 

1 

8 " l 

Knives: Butchers' .... 


144 

709 


24 

13 

29 " 1 

Milk pans: 0 quart... 


144 

73 

. ^ 

2 

18 

81 " 1 

Soap: Laundry . 


25.000 lbs. 

432 

. . 

21 

87 

20 " 1 

Boards: White pine ... 


100 M it. 

16,000 

, , 

272 

44 

58 " 1 

Marble Slabs: 8 ft. x 4 

ft. X 1 ilk 

25 

6,000 


11 

10 

589 “ l 

Iron pipe. 


100 ft. 

84 

22 

4 

47 

18 " 1 

Bolts . 


500 

142 

61 

8 

87 

16 " 1 

Nails . 


20.900 

239 

25 

1 

49 

129 “ l 

8erew Posts: Iron .... 


10.000 

1,250 


, , 

18 

4,098 " l 

Paint: White lead .... 


100 gal. 

383 

2W 

23 

13 

17 " 1 

Twine: Hemp . 


600 lbs. 

882 

8 

3 

12 

119 " l 

Ruling paper, 14 in. x 17 

in. 

100 run. 

4,800 


3 

45 

1,745 " 1 

Pin settings, gold. 


100 

250 


1 

. . 

250 " 1 

Cord: ti-ln.,' twisted sash. 

600 lbs. 

662 

30 

S 

32 

160 “ l 

Hemmors: Nail, 1 lb... 


13 dos. 

1,020 

, . 

88 

8 

27 " 1 

Plows: Landslae . 


10 

1,180 

. , 

87 

28 

33 " 1 

Pitchforks: 12-in. tines 


13 

49 


3 

8 

15 ** 1 


Average Increase in productive power, above commodities 321 to I 

























































92 


Constructive Democracy 


Table No. 2. 


HAVE YOU A 120,000,000 ACHE oF 
YOUR FARM? 

the* enormous exploiting power of Ameri* 
een tovu and city lands is well illustrated 
in a little lot at the 8. W. corner of State 
and Madison streets in Chieago. The size of 
this lot Is exactly 48 feet by 120 feet, or 
about oao-oighth (Vs) of an acre. Since 183(1 
this lot has increased in value over twelve! 
million (12,000,000) per centl Its present 
value, according to Geo. O. Olcott U Co.. eXi 
pert appraisers, la abont 851,000 a front 
root, or a total of $2,448,000! It would 
take over two hundred forty-four $10,000; 
farms to buy the lot without the improve* 
mental And a man earning $5 a day and 
working 800 days each year could not earn 
enough to buy it in sixteen hundred years! 
The five largest slave owners in the South 
combined never,, had an exploiting power 
equal to the owner of this little eighth-acre 
lot! The following table submitted by Geo, 
A. Schilling, former president of the Chicago 
Board of Local Improvements, is Worth 
studying: 


1 

* 

!! 

F 

it 

I 3 

p 

> 

!/l 

zlii 

lift 

i;ij 

f!4|. 

m 

f» 

III?! 

7830 

50 

20 


mm 

1835 

3,263 

4*800 

*48 

8X0 

1840 

4.470 

1,600 

•19 

1X0 

Wfl 

12,083 

6,000 

B 

3X3 

I860 

28.269 

17.600 

4.79 

U.48 

1855 

80,023 

40,000 

4.00 

25.66 

1850 

109,000 

28,000 

2.80 

18X4 

1885 

178X00 

45,000 

4.50 

80.00 

1870 

298,977 

120,000 

12.00 

80.00 

tS75 

400,000 

92,500 

0X5 

81.69 

18SO 

508.298 

130,000 

13.00 

66.59 

1885 

700,000 

276,000 

27.60 

183X3 

1890 

1,098,00Q 

900,000 

90.00 

400X0 

1895 

1,450,000 

929,000 

92.60 

416.86 

1900 

1,498,975 

1,052,000 

105,20 

701.33 

1905 

1,960,000 

1,430,000 

143 jOO 

453.35 

1910 

2,165,000 

1,700,000 

17000 

1,133X3 

1915 

2,500,000 

2,054,000 

200X0 

1,333X3 

ja 

2.701.705 

2,448.000 

244.80 

1,632X0 


WHO'S GOT Otm LAUD VALUES? 

.from Congressman Florlaa* Lamport*t 
Speech, delivered in the House of Represent* 
etives July 25, 1021.) 


Marshall Field store, Chicago (assessed 
vilue of land only). 111,803,474 - 

Value of 1,000 average farms In Wis¬ 
consin. mo census (buildings included). 
811,558,000 ... 

83 blocks In Chicago (80 acres) (value 
of land only), Sm.583.268 -...— 

Value of 20.000 average farms in Ohio, 
1120 census (buildings tnd’d), 8207,700,000 

“Loop" district In Chleago (V4 motion) 
(value of land only), about 8800.000.000~. 

Value of 100.000 average farms in 
Michigan, 1920 census (buildings Includ¬ 
ed), 1731,900,000 - 

New York City (assessed value of land 

only), 84.938.332.177 .. 

value of all (158.114) farms In the six 
New England States, 1920 census (build¬ 
ing Included). 8918,408,584 - t - 

is largest cities In the United States 
Climated value of land only), 819.119.- 

_ Value~7>f ell "ci!519.30i) farms In 84 
8tates. 1920 census (buildings Included). 
818,740,258,783 - ZZ _ 1 

Water, powers, fishing grounds, harbors 
and water fronts (estimated value of 
land only), 84,000.000.000 - 

Value of all (438,033) farms In Texas. 
1920 census (buildings Included), 83.717.- 
799,544 —--- 

Timber rights and timber lands (tail* 
mated value). 8io.ooo.ooo.ooo 

Value of all (478.373) farms and ranches 
In the it Mountain and Pacino 6tates 
(buildings Included), rr.ess,»te ste _ 

Franchises, pips lines, stock yards, 
railroad rights of way. terminals, and 
Government land grants (estimated value 

of land only), 816.000.000.000 -, , „, 

„ Value of all (2,721.839) farms In S2 
g^tes. 1920 census (buildings Included). 



cr 







Cool. oil. Iron, copper, lead, sine, gold, 
silver, marble, granite, and all gaa stone, 
and mineral lands (estimated value of 
land only). 171.000.000.000 ..—... , 

United 8tates. 3929 census (buildings In¬ 
cluded), 167.786X81X84 ”°^™"™°** T 



WHAT THE MASTERS HAVE SAID. 

As Dr. Adam Smith, the "father of political econ¬ 
omy,” wrote in his great work, "The Wealth of Nations” 
(Book I, Chap. XI), published in 1776: 

"Every improvement in the circumstances of 
the society tends either directly or indirectly to 
raise the real rent of land, to increase the real 
wealth of the landlord, his power of purchas¬ 
ing the labour or the produce of the labour of 
the people.” 























The Three Great Discoveries 


93 


Think of the three great wonderful powers, 
God of itself, bestowed free for the benefit and 
glory of man on earth. Then the few who have 
abnormal power to dominate and rule over man’s 
government, by unfair means for selfish ad¬ 
vantages, willing to bring into play, the (two) 
first of these powers, and at the same time un¬ 
willing and refuse to bring into play, the (third 
of these powers) which would also increase con¬ 
sumption in a corresponding) ratio with that of 
production, making equity of opportunity, free¬ 
ing exchange, and creating an equitable division 
of this increased wealth, whereby voluntary co¬ 
operative civilization would mount to loftier 
heights than yet dreamed of. They have the 
external form of man in flesh—but have they 
the intellectual form of man, will, love of equity, 
among men? Which only can be the man cre¬ 
ated in the image of his creator. Men arq not 
men from flesh, but are from the value and 
quality of the will, intellectual love of equity 
and true liberty. Form and flesh are only the 
temple wherein either may dwell, instinct or 
understanding, man or animal. 









% 




« 






a 







































* 




, • % 








# 



























ARTICLE VII. 


COMPETITION, CONSTRUCTIVE AND DESTRUCTIVE. 

T HE effect of the law of constructive com¬ 
petition can apply to private utilities, only: 
Because of there being a privilege, that rests on 
franchise, and that all are not free to enter 
into and engage, for that reason will not apply; 
it is the two-edged sword that cuts both ways— 
the deviser of life and death; it is the natural 
automatic governor and regulator of both the in¬ 
dividual and national actions and life, good or 
bad; it is the dynamic power of both, constructive 
and destructive, in its effects and influences, and 
is always present, and at work, in one form or 
the other, and is far beyond the power of man 
to set aside and dispense with by legislation or 
in any any other manner whatsoever. 

Competition differs from other natural law, 
in that it is subject to action in one of two 
different directions. In the first direction its 
effect is powerful and constructive, while in the 
other direction its effect is equally powerful, 
but destructive. The direction in which it may 
strike and affect depends upon whether methods 
of taxation are just or unjust. 

When all public revenues are raised by di¬ 
rect taxation of land values only, exclusive of 
all personal property, then the constructive type 


96 


Constructive Democracy 


of competition will have been brought into| full 
play, in the game of life, lifting individual and 
nation into higher stages of civilization, and 
having the effect of equalizing opportunity, 
which increases production, freeing exchange, 
and resulting in an equitable division of wealth, 
in just accordance with services rendered by 
each. By this same mighty constructive sweep, 
bringing to a close, combines, trusts and monop¬ 
oly of land and of money, then the sacred rights 
of private property are made secure; it may be 
depended upon never to fail of just and correct 
results, all of which are the true rights of man. 
Without this, to talk of peace is futile, abso¬ 
lutely. 

The constructive type of competition is to 
man and nation what the governor of a steam 
engine is to the action of the engine. Without 
an automatic governor it could not be used, as 
it would run away of itself and be hurled into 
fragments. The same is true of government, 
without the constructive type of competition as 
a natural automatic governor, as it, also, will 
run away of itself and be crushed into fragments 
by corruption, which will not fail to be destroyed 
by its own neglect of its duty of equity and 
justice. Artificial man-made regulation can never 
be made to take the place of the natural law, 
which is reliable and will meet all requirements. 

Just as it is true that all energy follows the 
line of least resistance, it is also true that inter- 


Competition 


97 


ference with man's equitable and ethical rights 
to follow lines of natural law and order in pur¬ 
suance of life, when set aside by legislation or 
man-made rules, alters that line. This is what 
brings into play the deadly force and destruc¬ 
tive type of competition, placing each individual 
and nation in an unnatural position of self-de¬ 
fense—of struggle and strife for existence. This 
is but to incubate criminals by cutting man's 
heart and soul from him. The result is an eye 
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It is but to 
transform what would be noble and good to brute 
qualities. From this it should be seen that it is 
not the law breakers who demand attention—it 
is the law makers who do. We shall not have 
law breakers when we cease making them. 

The destructive types of competition will re¬ 
main in full play, with great and relentless force, 
wrecking both man and nation, as long as gov¬ 
ernment raises its revenues by indirect consump¬ 
tive taxation—that is from personal property and 
goods for consumption, namely: by license, tar¬ 
iff, internal revenue, income and business taxes, 
all of which are paid by the consumers. As it is 
now, each pays in proportion to the amount of 
goods consumed. Wealth should never be taxed, 
as that is to destroy the sacred rights of private 
property. Nothing could be more unrighteous 
than that. Monopoly of land is what is doing 
the harm, not wealth, nor capitalism, as many 
believe, but it is the monopoly of land that brings 


98 


Constructive Democracy- 


hardship, place the taxes on that monopoly. Shall 
we never see that almost invisible mystery? It 
has baffled man from the early dawn of history 
to our time. 

He who is able to see and grasp the great¬ 
ness, power and harmony of the true solution of 
the problem, is inspired, transformed, according 
to the will of his Creator. He who can see true 
life with the eyes of reason is a superman; he 
has the vision of the true prophet. 

Let us suppose that there is an island that 
has 1,000 inhabitants; and that all of the land on 
the Island belongs to only 100 of its inhabitants. 
There would be 900 persons who have no land at 
all. 

Suppose that their government raised its pub¬ 
lic money by many different kinds of licenses, 
tariffs, internal revenues, income taxes and taxes 
on personal property and from goods for consump¬ 
tion. Very little tax would be left to be paid 
from a tax on the land. This is a special privi¬ 
lege, nearly free from taxes. This method of 
taxation would be bound to divide the inhabitants 
into two classes, the landed proprietors and the 
land-less; one class the masters, the other the 
slaves. ! | 

Under the conditions that such methods! of 
taxation bring, the constructive type of competi¬ 
tion can in no manner be brought into play, which 
would bear on both classes with equal pressure. 
The landless or slave class would be compelled 


Competition 


99 


to bid against one another to get jobs or mas¬ 
ters to serve, thus bringing down the price of 
wages to lower levels; then this same landless 
class would be compelled to bid against one an¬ 
other to rent land, that they might employ them¬ 
selves, and both land and land-rent would rise. 
Then the more productive machinery that is 
brought into use, the harder and higher would 
this bidding become. They must bid against one 
another to get work, which brings wages down, 
and they must bid against one another to rent 
land, which brings the price of land higher. In 
exactly the same proportion as land rent rises 
wages will fall, and vice versa. 

Competition is always present in one form 
or another and under methods of taxation as 
above described, the destructive type is always 
brought into play, wielding the deadly forces 
of destruction. 

The landed class is not in competition with 
the landless class, bidding against one another 
for a job or to rent land. Those who belong 
to the landed class are a class all to themselves, 
waiting for the bidder who is willing to give the 
largest returns for the least land, or willing to 
give the most work for the least pay; they do 
not need to work, as they are in a position to 
work the other fellows. 

Competition of the constructive type is the 
natural competitive evolutionary process and 
builder of both the physical and mental man. 


100 


Constructive Democracy 


The physical builds only form, strength and 
beauty, all of which may, or may not be but 
animal and brute in thel form of man. But the 
mental process builds quality, with understands, 
loves and wills, sacrifices and acts for justice 
and equity, harmony and power, of the natural 
law and order, in and with its relation to fel- 
lowman and brother. 

He that understands this mighty power, 
is he not inspired—son created in the image of 
his Creator? 

The constructive type must first be brought 
into play before we can have national life, as 
the nation is the foundation and creator of in¬ 
dividual environments, which must first be 
changed before natural transit of civilization is 
possible. This is but to allow reason to take 
the place of the savage and brute instincts that 
yet remain in a few; but of which man is in 
no further need after he has brought into use 
highly developed] science, as there is more than 
enough of the necessaries and comforts of life 
for all. 

To fail in this is to spontaneously reverse 
these sciences, which acts in the very opposite 
direction of self-destruction of civilization. All 
of the mighty forces of man brought into ac¬ 
tion cannot withstand this destruction; yet the 
wizards and the learned, who wield the power and 
who deceive in order to govern, are fooling them¬ 
selves, as well as the people; but never will that 


Competition 


101 


fool the God of Nature—He will not be deceived 
by legerdemain in the name of politics. Men 
may be killed by millions, but principles do not 
die nor can they be killed. Jesus asked: “What 
will you do when the end comes?” It's here, 
now. Are there any who yet believe that he 
was sacrificed because he clamored for a king¬ 
dom in the skies? 0 no, they never kill for 
that! He was crucified because he clamored for 
a kingdom of equity and justice, here, on this 
earth of clay, which makes salvation political 
and national, rather than an individual matter; 
but it must come by the individual to the na¬ 
tion. 

Mr. Henry George says in “Progress and 
Poverty,” page 345, “Place one hundred men on 
an island from which there is no escape, and 
whether you make one of these men the abso¬ 
lute owner of the ninety-nine, or the absolute 
owner of the soil of the island, will make no 
difference either to him or to them. In the 
one case, as in the other, the one will be the 
absolute master of the ninety-nine; his power 
will extend even to life and death, for simply to 
refuse them permission to live upon the island 
would be to force them into the sea.” 

There can be no such thing as an equitable 
competition that will have the elevating buoy¬ 
ancy of lifting the individual and the nation to 
nobler height, until all men have an equal right 
to the use of the land, free exchange and an 


102 


Constructive Democracy 


equitable division of wealth. This can in no 
manner take place except by an equitable taxa¬ 
tion of land values, only. Any other methods 
are only jugglery, witchcraft and deception, for 
delaying fairness in the game of life. 


ARTICLE VIII. 


ONLY TWO SCHOOLS OF POLITICS. 

W HEN arranged and classified in proper 
order there can be only two different 
schools of politics. The first is the natural 
and the second is the artificial. There are only 
two sources from which law or rules of action can 
come or be obtained. The first source is the will 
of nature, and from it the natural law is derived. 
The second source is the will or desire of man, 
and the rules of action derived therefrom are 
artificial, prescript and assumed, and not funda¬ 
mental law. 

It is clear that there can be no more schools 
than there are sources from which law and rule 
can come, as the source, only, is what makes 
the difference. Names of parties are not what 
make the different schools, the source from 
which they get the law and rules does that. 
Naturalists and First School: 

The first school is composed of those whose 
desire it is to fully obey the will of natural ethics 
—those who get their law by observation and 
discovery of the source of nature as that is the 
only true abstract base and source of all law, for 
equitable and just government, and of all science, 
which must be depended upon for correct actions 
and results. 


104 


Constructive Democracy 


Those who belong to the first school well 
know that political ethics is an exact science, 
which is underlaid with exact fundamental prin¬ 
ciples of natural law and divine order; that gov¬ 
ernment is the same as any and all of the 
sciences, as mathematics, chemistry and astron¬ 
omy. All must depend upon the same cause. It 
would/ indeed be very strange if the science of 
politics, only, were left out of this realm or 
sphere, as if it were merely a matter of prescript, 
accident, caprice or man’s whim. Natural law 
is everywhere present at all times, and it is 
beyond the power of man to alter or to amend, 
and it is eternal and everlasting. 

It enables those who belong to the first 
school to draw equitable and exact decisive lines 
that show clearly where individual and civil offi¬ 
cial rights begin and end—so far and no farther; 
and when the natural law is obeyed it pays its 
own reward to the proper party, therefore needs 
no force to enforce. When disobeyed it admin¬ 
isters its own penalty to the right party, never 
fails and without mercy. 

Natural law is the only fundamental, ethical, 
applicable, constructive and exact science of polit¬ 
ical ethics. Those who are guided by its prin¬ 
ciples are naturalists. 

Artificialists and the Second School: 

The second school is composed of those whose 
desire it is to obey the source of man’s desire and 
will, artificial, arbitrary, assumed and prescript 


Only Two Schools of Politics 105 

rules only, then to misname it law, when it is 
only man-made law, or rules of action, which 
have no more fundamental foundation than the 
desire of a few men’s will, and is usually 
void of natural ethics, and the science of true 
politics. Man-made laws depend upon artificial 
ethics—upon custom and tradition handed down 
from feudal ages of the past; they are no 
more than the whims of a few men of caprice, 
of tooth and claw, catch on who can, where 
and when you can, if you can; every fel¬ 
low for himself, regardless of true morals. Such 
rules of action always leave those who follow 
them unable to draw correct ethical lines—the 
lines that show clearly where official civil and 
individual rights begin and end. 

Prescript and man-made rules which do not 
rest on the morals of nature are very technical 
and mischievous and not dependable, which places 
the administering of government and judiciary 
in a very awkward position to administer justly, 
and can never meet the requirements; but when 
desired, may be caricatured, with magic phrases, 
and dignity and affable composure, into almost 
any kind of verdict that is wished. 

Man-made rules are temporary, subject to 
alteration, to be changed or dispensed with, and 
in nearly every instance they are only caprice 
and whim, for the purpose of getting unfair 
advantages and interfering with man’s natural 
rights, and therefore pay the greatest rewards 


106 


Constructive Democracy 


when disobeyed. For that reason force is re¬ 
quired to enforce them, and penalties are pre¬ 
scribed by legislation, with never-abating, cease¬ 
less warfare between man and man—between 
nation and nation, strategy, struggle and strife 
in self-defense, in defense of life, each in the 
feudal arena of Babylon. 

As these laws stand only for artificial, ar¬ 
bitrary and assumed man and home-made rule, 
which has as its foundation only the desire and 
will of men, they are absolutely void of natural 
ethics and fundamental law, regardless of the 
party names chosen. The parties that depends 
on them are only different factions who get their 
rules from the same artificial source, which 
places them in the second school, as such are 
confounded and confused who are truly artifi- 
cialists. 

The Democratic, Republican and Prohibition 
parties all make their mistake in political ethics, 
by ignoring the sacred rights of private prop¬ 
erty, in raising the public moneys, as they take 
private property from private pockets for the 
public use, and at the same time ignore the tak¬ 
ing of the natural public value created for the 
public use, which is a breach of natural ethics, 
the most serious that there is, also ignoring the 
public utilities, which are natural public affairs, 
though in the control of and managed by private 
parties, at the present time. The public utilities 


Only Two Schools of Politics 107 

are a natural public affair, because the law of 
competition does not apply to a public utility. 

These two important facts make them only 
another group of socialists, artificial prescriptors, 
regardless of party names under which they 
choose to march. 

The Naturalists and First School: 

The naturalists, those who belong to the first 
school, have a political party known as the Single 
Tax Party; they believe that all equitable and 
fundamental law can come only from the source 
of nature, both for individual and national life; 
that the injunction of the natural law and divine 
order must be fully obeyed in order to have 
equity, liberty and lasting peace and prosperity; 
that this is the only source that can be fully 
depended upon, as this alone can restore to man 
his natural inherited rights that are his by birth 
—his equal right to the use of the land, by 
which both the individual and the nation are 
lifted out of the deadly pit of self-defense, 
struggle, strife and of tooth and claw for life. 
Then the constructive type of competition will 
be brought into full play in the game of life, 
for the first time in civilization. It will be 
brought into play as the natural regulator and 
governor of both man and nation, which will 
automatically regulate all three, opportunity, 
exchange and division of wealth, so that each 
will have its exact proportion, in accordance with 
services rendered. 


108 


Constructive Democracy 


All who understand the natural law, which 
is the science of political ethics, well know that 
there is no remedy except equitable taxation and 
government ownership and operation of natural 
public utilities. One makes the sacred rights of 
private property valid, while the other makes the 
sacred rights of public service just and efficient, 
as these are the first fundamental foundation 
stones upon which each must rest to properly 
function, and must be brought into play first, as 
the foundation, after organizing government. 

All who understand the natural law well un¬ 
derstand that the discoveries of science have 
completely changed the old to a new world, and 
that there can be no such thing as rehabilitation 
by old and former methods; that science is what 
is creating the demand for new methods, for an 
equitable division of wealth. This will have to 
take place before we can have peace and oppor¬ 
tunity. Until this is done there can be only 
military government, which covers the whole 
face of the earth, no matter by what name it 
may be called. The administering of government 
is of far more importance than are form and 
name. When government is administered by 
equity there can be no further need of force and 
the military. 

The naturalists of the first school understand 
that the discoveries of science have increased 
man’s power of production to such enormous pro¬ 
portions that it is about from 250 to 800 times 


Only Two Schools of Politics 109 

as great as it was 100 years ago. At that time 
man, horse and oxen were the only power. Now 
it is oil, gas, coal, water power, electric, steam 
and gas engines, attached to automatic machinery 
with fingers of steel to take the place of fingers 
of flesh, and which automatically turn out 
finished goods, ready for the market and use. 
When the power of production is increased the 
power of consumption must be increased, also, 
at about the same ratio, which the science of 
equitable taxation, only, can or will do. 

Science has brought the world new conditions 
that will have to be met by new methods. When 
two-thirds of the industrial producers are 
engaged with highly developed machinery, ware¬ 
houses and shelves are soon overstocked with 
goods. This has a bad effect on farming, as well 
as on all other business, and soon leads to clos¬ 
ing down of factories. Then hard times set in 
and cutting of wages soon leads to strikes, then 
the need of military aid, which means more tax¬ 
ation; and so this goes on and on, ceaselessly. 

This has been going on so long that both big 
business and labor have become spoiled, losing 
all reason, and becoming, as it were, insane. 
Neither seems to know what to do that is equit¬ 
able and just, both seemingly dignified only 
when they can show others where to head in. 

With this increased power of production that 
science has brought there is always a great sur¬ 
plus of both labor and goods, because wages and 


110 


Constructive Democracy 


farm products are so low that the producers are 
unable to buy back the products of their own 
labor, which brings on hard times. 

Then when strikes take place big business 
is able to pit the unemployed half against the 
other starving half; and thus the) war goes on, 
lowering civilization with each event, of which 
both groups are members. Neither seems to 
know what to do, and both are stubborn! to the 
point of insanity, because neither understands 
the science of politics, which treats on equity of 
taxation; it is the Eureka—the remedy for both 
rich and poor. There is no other remedy, nor 
will there be any other ever found. Nature de¬ 
termines that; and this school well understands 
it. Forty-two years have passed since this was 
made known by Mr. Henry George, and no man 
is able to answer, refute or explain his argu¬ 
ments away. 

The artificialists are divided into several 
groups;, each has a party organization. Demo¬ 
crats, Republicans, Socialists, Prohibitionists, 
Soviet system and Communists, are groups of the 
artificial school, consciously or unconsciously. 
They are not classified according to the differ¬ 
ent names they assume, but according to the 
source from which they get their law or rule. 
When the source is from man’s will, only, then it 
is merely prescript and artificial rule, upon which 
all of these groups depend for rules of action, 
none of which can be fundamental law; but 


Only Two Schools of Politics 111 

each artificial, only, with little or no regard for 
the natural law and ethics. 

This leaves them unable or unwilling to 
understand where to draw clear and decisive 
lines where individual and official rights and 
wrongs begin or end, so that these artificialists 
are unable to see the natural rights of man 
to the equitable use of the land, and the natural 
right of free exchange, thus interfering with 
natural production and division of wealth. So 
complete and powerful is this control, in the 
hands of a few who have control of the two great 
parties, that candidates seldom feel safe to ex¬ 
press their own convictions on equitable taxation 
and constructive issues for platforms and legis¬ 
lative measures that rest on natural law. 

Thus, both the people and administrations 
are left confused and bewildered, at the mercy 
of special privilege, hence they are dominated 
over, lines of right and wrong not being drawn 
or taught. By this means, rules are passed by 
which special privilege can plunder the people, 
one now, and another then, gradually undermin¬ 
ing security and just government, over-riding 
true democracy, the right of the people, and 
making the rich richer, and the poor poorer; and 
making of those who usurp the rights of the 
people kaisers and czars, in the midst of our na¬ 
tion. This is what is creating armies and navies, 
and making military government of force, which 
is only a necessary evil. 


112 


Constructive Democracy 


Governments whose foundations rest on 
natural equity need no force to enforce, from the 
fact that obedience fully merits the greater re¬ 
ward to both man and nation. 

Neither of these parties have clear, clean-cut 
program, as may be seen by the platforms they 
offer, and from the rules they formulate and 
pass by legislation, which place them on record 
as assumers. After election they throw away 
their platforms, as they are of no further use, 
as at next election new ones will have to be 
written, which must be altogether different. 
Because those who frame these platforms do not 
understand natural fundamental principles they 
cannot stand for the same thing more than once. 

All of these groups disobey the sacred rights 
of private property, when they take by taxation 
private property from private pockets for the 
public use, and at the same time refuse to take 
by taxation for the public use the natural public- 
created value, which attaches to land by reason 
of its being a special privilege and franchise, for 
which the holders owe the public, and which, in 
fact, is not a tax at all, but a value that falls in 
the holders’ hands, without effort on their part. 
Then, in nearly every case, the holder says that 
he believes in the sacredness of private property. 
It must not be lost sight of that land is not 
property, which fact is explained in the article 
on money. Land is no more property than the 
black man was before the Civil War. He be- 


Only Two Schools of Politics 113 

longed to himself; and as land is the bounty of 
nature upon which all must be fed, therefore 
it belongs to all mankind to use on terms of 
equity, which is the birthright that Esau sold 
for a mess of pottage, the sin of our fathers 
so often referred to in the Scriptures. 

After platforms are arranged and nomina¬ 
tions made, office seekers, deceiving and being 
deceived, pose, affable, magnetic, and surround¬ 
ed by a halo of deception and disguise; scolding, 
quarreling, threatening and misrepresenting; 
keeping the truth and mystery of taxation hid¬ 
den from the people, which is more mischievous 
than lying. Then there are the bewildering lure 
of the band and the thunder of the press; the 
office-seeking spell-binding, the wind-jammers 
of political jazz; and there are false promises, 
with! no way of checking up or fixing responsi¬ 
bility. Not understanding the science of poli¬ 
tics, the people are ensnared like rabbits and 
sheep, over and over, again and again—too smart 
to learn. And this must continue until the plain 
people, themselves, learn, and become wise, fair 
and unselfish, or parties collapse with their own 
corruption. 1 

Each of these parties has a different name 
and may stand for different issues, but the issues 
are all from man’s will, which are from the same 
sources, unnatural and artificial, commonly call¬ 
ed “politicians” which is only to mis-name them, 
as they are only office seekers looking for jobs. 


114 


Conitructive Democracy 


A politician, proper, is a saint, who loves equity 
and understands the science of politics, and who 
acts and works to that end. 

The Socialists, however, are sincere and hon¬ 
est, and have the right ideal, but fall far short 
of the natural, ethical, constructive and applic¬ 
able remedy. Neither honesty nor sincerity can, 
make a wrong method right, but they are a 
great help in finding the right method. Social¬ 
ists’ books fail to show the difference between 
interest on capital and land rent, or what is nat¬ 
ural private and public property; they fail to 
show the difference in effect between the two 
methods of taxation, direct and indirect; they 
fail to see that the direct method is equitable, 
and is the natural automatic distributor of the 
land and natural resources, while the indirect has 
the opposite effect, in the concentration of the 
land and natural resources and also of all other 
wealth, therefore indirect taxes are inequitable 
and fall on the consumers to pay, all of which 
interferes with opportunity, production, exchange 
and division of wealth. 

The socialists do not see that taxation of 
land values, only, and government ownership and 
operation of all natural public utilities—these 
two planks—are all that is! needed in any plat¬ 
form to correct present wrong conditions; that 
the remaining social wrongs will, like cogs in a 
machine, fall into proper place and correct them¬ 
selves ; that these two planks will cure bad bank 


Only Two School* of Politic* 115 

law and money systems and disarm and dispense 
with military government. What will the 
moneyed interests do with their money when 
land values disappear? Then they will'not be 
able to lend money on land. Then how can they 
injure society with it, as then will artificial land 
value will have disappeared. 

Anarchists are also artificial and belong to 
the second school; they also, are confused. 
Theirs is a theory of government without fixed 
rules of action; they believe that all govern¬ 
ments are oppressive and deprive man of his nat¬ 
ural rights, which is partly true. But they 
fail to see that there are some rights that are 
to some degree protected, and that men are look¬ 
ing for the light—trying to find the path that 
leads to that protection; they fail to see that it 
is better and safer to get protection through the 
government that we have now, than to annihilate 
or destroy what we have already attained, and 
take such desperate chances. Anarchists are 
also confused, and are not able to see the dif¬ 
ference between natural law and the artificial 
rules that are man-made. 

Man does not see from the light that sur¬ 
rounds us, but he may see from the light that is 
within. 

The Declaration of Independence, Says, in Part: 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, 
that all men are created equal, that they are en¬ 
dowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 


116 


Constructive Democracy 


rights; that among these are life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these 
rights, governments are instituted among men, 
deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed; that whenever any form of gov¬ 
ernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is 
the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and 
to institute new government, laying its founda¬ 
tion on such principles and organizing its pow¬ 
ers in such form as to them shall seem most like¬ 
ly to effect their safety and happiness/' 

This is probably the most sacred, holy and 
true declaration that ever originated in the brain 
and passed from the lips of man. This inalien¬ 
able right is the right to life, which cannot be 
protected as long as babies are bom who have 
not the right to set their feet on earth, and 
where some men must pay others for the 
privilege of working to preserve life. As it is 
now, the majority are compelled to make life for 
others before they are allowed to make life for 
themselves, and must give over 60% of their 
earnings to others for the right to work, and on 
top of that is consumptive taxes and excessive 
freight rates. 

Inalienable rights means something we can¬ 
not part with, something we cannot sell or give 
away and exist without. The right to use the 
Land on equitable terms to all, which is the right 
to life itself. 


Only Two Schools of Politics 


117 


Remember the most radical thing on earth, 
is Truth, Equity and Justice. Our form of 
Government, is as near Ideal as any I know and 
more than likely, the best to our time. All admit 
and agree something is wrong. The troubles 
come not as such, from form—But from admin¬ 
istering and raising the public moneys, any and 
all the different forms do that in about the same 
way and manner, and all have the same troubles, 
which is conclusive evidence, that the troubles 
comes from wrong administering rather than 
from forms. 


ARTICLE IX. 


WHAT IS LAW? 


HAT is law ? What and where is the source 



w from which it comes? Is there more than 
one source from which laws may be obtained? Is 
there more than one kind of law? What is the 
difference ini kinds, of value and quality? 

I look in dictionaries and ask professors and 
lawyers, from universities and colleges. Each 
one gives me a different definition and mean¬ 
ing, not one of which makes any distinctive dif¬ 
ference between natural law and artificial rules 
of action. Then, what am I to do if I desire to 
know more fully about this affair? Think and 
reason it out for myself, in my own way. This 
is what I find: 

Man can and may make rules of action, only, 
but he cannot make law. Laws have always 
existed, and do not need to be made, but they 
may be found, by observation and discovery of 
the will and source of nature, and are the natural 
law and ethics, which always were, are now, and 
always will be present everywhere, at all times, 
places and in unlimited space. 

There is only one source from which law 
can come and be obtained—the source of nature, 
which is from above, and by which society may 
govern itself equitably, justly and democratically; 


120 


Constructive Democracy 


it is the only true source and exact science of 
political ethics, and may be depended upon never 
to fail of exactness and of meeting every re¬ 
quirement in every detail and particular, which 
is. the absolute infallible will of the natural and 
law. 

As this is the only source from which man 
may be enabled to obtain the true abstractive 
fundamental foundation upon which law must 
rest, it must be founded upon justice and equity, 
and always pays the greatest reward when fully 
obeyed with equity; nor will it fail of administer¬ 
ing the penalty when violated. For that rea¬ 
son it needs no force to enforce, and is the only 
possible way of disarmament and preventing mil¬ 
itary government by force. Is not this what 
special privilege and the educators have kept hid¬ 
den from the people? Once installed, and the 
people educated, it would free them from super¬ 
stition. Now, they are ever learning and yet 
never able to come to the knowledge of the 
truth, because false teaching hides this noble 
truth. 

The dynamic power and influence of the 
natural law is ever present, even when set aside 
by substitution of artificial man-made rules, to 
take the place of the natural, which must always 
result in clash and conflict between the natural 
and the artificial rule and law. Of this there is no 
escape from paying the penalty. Is not this the 
Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient God, 


What Is Law? 


121 


of itself, which is the cause of all that was, is 
now, and ever will be? Is it not tne abstractive, 
fundamental foundation of all philosophy and 
science, upon which all must depend for action, 
energy, harmony and equity, material or imma¬ 
terial, visible and invisible? To be out of har¬ 
mony with it is but to be blind, superstitious, 
false and hypocritical, a mischievous worker and 
babbler of confusion, regardless of position oc¬ 
cupied or of dignity assumed, or of the halo that 
may appear. 

Man is the only animal in all creation that 
is' able, by cunningly arranging his own rules to 
occupy the place of natural law, to deprive his 
fellow-man, brother and citizen, of natural rights. 
And whosoever acts and aids in denying these 
rights to others, by legislation or in other man¬ 
ner, is still only animal, though endowed with 
the form of man. And when he accepts a public 
trust and confidence bestowed upon him through 
the sacredness of democracy, and denies by leg¬ 
islation the sacred rights of private property, by 
inequitable taxation, then he is betraying his 
sacred trust; he is denying every right to him¬ 
self that is sacred and dear—the sacredness of 
both private property and democracy, which is 
the most holy of holies; he is undermining the 
rights of his own child that may not yet be 
born. Is this to be created in the image of his 
Creator? Is it the physical body of flesh and 
instinct that is the man, or is it the quality and 


122 


Constructive Democracy 


value of the will, and love of equity, that con¬ 
stitute the man? 

Natural laws are the only fundamentals 
there are, that are permanent—everlasting; that 
are not possible of alteration nor amendment. 
And when set aside by the substitution of man¬ 
made rules, natural laws will in every case be 
followed by penalty, which in all cases must be 
paid. Six thousand years of history are a 
record of that fact and show that it is as certain 
as that light follows the sun. The mandates of 
natural law are vitally necessary to national life 
and voluntary co-operation of individual life. 

The second is the source from which rules 
of action come and are obtained, that is, from the 
desires and will of man, only, and most often 
from a minority—a few men—for the purpose of 
getting advantages over other men. 

Rules differ from fundamental law, in that 
they are only temporary, arbitrary, artificial, 
prescriptive and often assumed, man-made and 
home-made. They are not fundamental nor 
permanent, nor can they be made so, as they are 
subject to change, alteration or amendment, or 
to be dispensed with any time a legislature meets. 

To assume that man-made rules are funda¬ 
mental law, would be equivalent to assuming that 
God is a God of caprice, whim and accident, and 
is contravention of Himself. Yet many of these 
rules are good, and desirable and must be. How¬ 
ever, far the greater portion of them interfere 


What Is Law? 


123 


with and deprive man of his natural rights of 
production, exchange and equitable division of 
wealth, which are his rights to life and are 
natural, voluntary co-operation of free exchange. 
Violation of these rights results in poverty, want 
and squalor, which are at fault and are the cause 
of revolutions and wars, crime and the downfall 
of nations. On every page of history, from 
Adam to our time, one wreck after another is a 
record of that fact; and that is the creator of 
counterfeit politics and politicians, who have only 
man’s form of flesh. 

In order toj be democratic, natural or artifi¬ 
cial rules or laws must be sanctioned by repre¬ 
sentatives of the people as a whole, free from 
cliques, groups, privileged persons or combines. 
When artificial rules do not rest on the morals 
of the natural law they are false and idolatrous, 
superstitious and disastrous. 

There is a great difference between a natural 
law and an artificial rule, made by and from 
man’s will and desires. It is a great wrong to 
call both by the same name or term, without 
making a clear distinction between them, when 
they are so extremely different, both as to 
source and as to quality and value. One is a 
free gift from the God of Nature, dependable, 
equitable, just, infallible and immutable, the 
most absolute perfection; the others are only 
temporary. In many instances they are good, 
but in most cases they are indescribably mis- 


124 


Constructive Democracy 


chievous, and have made this earth a battle¬ 
ground and a cemetery for six thousand years. 

If it were possible for man to create or make 
law, it would also be possible for him to unmake 
them; then prohibitionists could call on Congress 
and have the law of fermentation cease, whic- 
would bring drinking and bootlegging to a close, 
at once. This would be well worth while, sav¬ 
ing millions of expense, besides the woe of 
thousands of mothers and children. If it were 
possible for man to make law, we could have 
chickens lay bricks as well as eggs. 

Some may ask, “What is natural law?” 

Honesty and reason, alone, can answer that. 
Each must have that within himself, as it can¬ 
not be seen with physical eyes of flesh, but can 
be seen only with the mental eyes of reason, as 
many of the natural laws do not manifest them¬ 
selves with a physical body of their own accord, 
for instance, the law that governs mathematics, 
or the science of politics, or chemistry, and 
many others. What we see in the physical 
realm, that is to say the earth, animals and vege¬ 
tation, is only the effect and manifestation and 
will of the natural law. The law, itself, can be 
seen or comprehended only by the mental eye of 
reason. 

We say that two and two are four. Why 
are two and two four? Let us have the reason 
why. It does not make it true because man¬ 
kind says it is so. Two and two are four because 


What Is Law? 


125 


that is the law of nature, truth, and God, Him¬ 
self. Man never made that law; he only dis¬ 
covered it. As it did not manifest itself with 
a physical body it could not well be used in that 
manner, so he invented ten numerical characters, 
then gave each of them certain powers, both of 
form and location. Without these they could not 
have been used or imparted and learned by 
others. And he that receives this knowledge 
receives inspiration from the God that made him. 

After this, man was enabled to use the 
wonderful law of numbers for his own conven¬ 
ience and glory. Had this not been accom¬ 
plished mankind could never have risen far above 
the lower animals. 

Some may ask, “How long have two and 
two been four?” Reason at once suggests the 
answer. It was always true; two and two have 
always been four, everywhere. It never needed 
to be made so, here, in America, or in Europe, 
Asia or on the planet, Jupiter, or anywhere in un¬ 
limited space or time. 

Take the modern sewing-machine. The law 
upon which it must depend for action and results 
never needed to be made; it was always every¬ 
where present. The same is true of mathe¬ 
matics, chemistry, the loom, gas, steam and elec¬ 
tricity, or the radio, wireless telegraphy, or of 
all astronomical bodies. All are governed by the 
natural law. Man might have had sewing-ma¬ 
chines and all the modem science 50,000 years 


126 


Comtructive Democracy 


ago, as well as now, had he at that time reached 
this stage of discovery and understanding of the 
natural law, which is science. About 3,000 years 
ago Solomon said there was nothing new under 
the sun. 

Here is a fact that should never be lost 
sight of in legislation, which is the cause of the 
world’s trouble: 

Every law of nature that ever has or ever 
will be discovered is endowed with two equally 
balanced agents, one of power and the other of 
force. The one of power is the constructive 
type of competition, which affects and works for 
good; the other one, of force, is the destructive 
type of competition, which affects and tears down 
and works for the bad. One or the other of 
these agents is always present in society. Which 
one of these agents will be brought into play 
depends on how the government raises the pub¬ 
lic taxes. When they are raised by equitable 
methods of taxation, then the one of power is 
brought into full play, which removes all unfair 
and unnatural restrictions from production, ex¬ 
change and division of wealth, and is the natural 
right of man. And that will give full reward 
just in accordance to services of both man and 
nation. Full reward is a powerful incentive that 
is just and a lifting lever of civilization. 

When taxes are raised by inequitable 
methods, then the agent of force which is 
brought into full play is the destructive type of 


What Is Law? 


127 


competition, which interferes with man’s natural 
rights of production, exchange and equitable di¬ 
vision of wealth, forcing man to pay] over 60% 
of his earnings for the privilege of working, and 
creating armies, navies, revolution and wars, and 
bringing civilization down to lower levels. This 
is artificial man-made rule and not law. 

There can be no peace, except by prosperity; 
there can be no prosperity except for the few, un¬ 
til governing and administrative power is so ad¬ 
justed as to harmonize with natural ethics and 
divine order, which is the science of politics. 
Because we bring into use the science of machin¬ 
ery and chemistry, we must also bring into use 
the science of politics, for the reason that the 
first two of these sciences increase production, 
but have no corresponding effect to increase con¬ 
sumption, or division of this increased wealth, 
which leaves this great increased wealth in the 
possession of the few, but which confounds and 
debauches the three-headed form of govern¬ 
mental functioning bodies, the law-making the 
judiciary and the executive. 

The new science of equitable taxation has 
just the opposite effect on the division and con¬ 
sumption of this increased wealth, which science 
brings to man. But the old method of inequit¬ 
able taxation has the effect of concentratiou of 
the increased wealth in the possession of the 
few. 


128 


Constructive Democracy 


If we increase production we must also in¬ 
crease consumption; that is the will and law of 
nature, which is challenging man-made rule, of 
which the World War was a symptom of the con¬ 
flict and clash between the two. 

For forty years the privileged have managed 
to keep this late science of politics hidden from 
the plain people, and from themselves as well, 
also from party organizations and legislative 
assemblies. Probably they did not know, at 
the time, that a new generation of managers 
would be born, who would have to mount the 
stage of management, and that the new set 
would be left blind and dark on this matter; 
neither did they know that to stay and arrest 
equitable taxation would produce a catastrophe 
that would wipe the old world off from its feet, 
like chaff before the whirl-wind, with sudden, 
unexpected and abrupt end, forever, and with ter¬ 
rible sacrifice of life and wealth; the privileged 
classes have been blinded, themselves, by the 
judgment they placed upon others. By so doing 
they are unable to look or to see the abyss of 
their own making, which is also a trap of their 
own making. If correctives are not applied very 
soon, it will cause their downfall. The people are 
easily fooled, but if the attempt is made to fool 
them again the foolers will themselves be fooled. 
The sciences that have been discovered are be¬ 
ing turned to the destruction of civilization, but 
the sciences that have completely displaced the 


What Is Law? 


129 


old world for the new will not permit history to 
repeat itself, but will have a reflex action, entire¬ 
ly different from what it was heretofore. 

Would it not be very strange that all science 
must depend upon the natural law to operate, 
and government and civilization alone should be 
left out of that sphere—the realm of natural law 
and science? That government should be left to 
caprice, whim and prescript of man? It is as 
plain and simple as the law that straightens a 
string when both ends are pulled, that that is 
not the case. 

The science of political ethics is the under¬ 
standing and application of the natural law and 
order by which society may govern itself equit¬ 
ably, justly and correctly; which is the only true 
fundamental foundation possible for peace, pros¬ 
perity and true liberty. 

Man can no more make rules to govern him¬ 
self justly and correctly than he can lift him¬ 
self over the moon by pulling at his boot-straps. 
Six thousand years of experimenting ought to 
teach us that. 

Under just and equitable conditions, where 
man would be free to act with security and free 
from fear of want, his first natural impulse and 
instinct would be to follow and obey the natural 
law and order. First, because it is ethical; sec¬ 
ond, because reward follows obedience, and third, 
because disobedience enforces its own penalty, 
never-failing and without mercy. 


130 


Constructive Democracy- 


Artificial rules of action in nearly every case 
have just the opposite effect. For that reason 
there must be a penalty prescribed by legisla¬ 
tion to enforce by force. In nearly every in¬ 
stance it interferes with man’s ethical rights 
and pays the greatest reward when disobeyed; 
and when obeyed a penalty is administered to 
the other parties, who are innocent and must 
bear the burden. That is true of all consump¬ 
tive taxation, tariff, income licenses and personal 
property taxes. 

We continually hear the well educated and 
learned say, “What we need is more education.” 
They often assert that the lack of education is 
why the evolution of politics is so slow of pro¬ 
gress. But at the same time this same group of 
educators has cut out, completely, from all of 
the text books used in the great places of learn¬ 
ing and in smaller, as well, everything that is 
equitable, applicable, constructive, just and 
scientific—all that is in the least way suggestive 
of the restoration of man’s natural ethical rights, 
and substituted economics and sociology that are 
more or less a science of business, but have no 
relation to the science of politics. Economics 
and sociology are not science; they are well-writ¬ 
ten wrong prescript taught in the name of poli¬ 
tics, to befog the mind. Economics are results; 
politics is the cause. 

One of the most noted and learned charac¬ 
ters that ever stood before the American people 


What Is Law? 


131 


has written and prepared a large text book for 
use in the great places of learning. He calls the 
book, “History and Practical Politics.” It is fine, 
as to history, but as to practical politics, it is ab¬ 
solutely void, bunk and quackery, that becloud 
the minds of students and make them think they 
understand politics, and that it is a very intri¬ 
cate matter, which is not true. In reality it is 
as plain as the law that makes 2 and 2 equal 4. 

The graduates who receive diplomas from 
these great places of learning do not understand 
the difference between land rent and interest, or 
between wealth and capital, and do not under¬ 
stand the natural law that governs rent of land, 
wages to the producers, and their relation to the 
natural division of wealth. 

Is not hiding this true science by quackery, 
or by not teaching the science at all, far more 
wrong than lying is, itself? 

Is civilization not now directed and guided by 
the highest and best learned, shrouded by dig¬ 
nity and a halo of education? Are professors, 
deans and presidents of colleges free to teach this 
true science? Are they not over-lorded by spe¬ 
cial privilege, which dominates all schools, and 
every avenue of intelligence that leads to this 
star of liberty? Are not the press and party 
organizations also dominated? Are they not of 
little or no education, only potters’ clay in the 
hands of educators, who mould falsely? 


132 


Constructive Democracy 


Was not the command of the prophet to the 
teachers, rulers, preachers, scribes and priests, 
to “feed my sheep,” given in reference to knowl¬ 
edge, not bread? Is not equity the Golden Rule, 
and did he not make clear what the abyss was, 
and what the penalty would be for failing in 
equity? 

Is not equitable taxation the foundation, 
which must be placed first, in first’s place, first, 
and that all remaining functionary principles must 
rest upon that, in order to properly function? Did 
not democracy create the state and nation, as a 
security and salvation of the individual who 
created them? If so, then salvation of the in¬ 
dividual and nation must depend upon national 
political Christianity in raising the public moneys 
in an equitable manner to pay for this work. 

The present unfair and unjust conditions, 
created by artificial rules, in raising the public 
moneys were handed down by custom and tradi¬ 
tion from Babylon and Rome, by and from the 
highest and best educated; but they are robbing 
the industrial farmer, the factory hand and the 
ordinary business man of over 65% on the dollar 
of what he produces—his rightful wages and 
earnings. This automatically resolves itself into 
abnormal land rents, which are caused by wrong 
methods of taxation; they spontaneously go to the 
wrong parties and are taken by those to whom 
they do not belong. This is so obscure, as to be 
almost an invisible mystery, because the pro- 


What Is Law? 


133 


cess does not manifest itself with a physical form 
and material body, therefore it is hard for the 
sheep to see. The educators know that. Phys¬ 
ical things can be seen by physical eyes of the 
flesh, but spiritual law can be seen only by 
mental eyes of reason; that makes the difference. 

It is easy to assess wealth, but not so easy 
to make wealth pay taxes. There has never yet 
been found a method by which wealth can be 
made to pay taxes, and that isn’t all, there never 
will be. Besides, that would be wrong, if it 
could be done. Wealth should never be made 
to pay taxes. Wealth is not what is injuring 
civilization. The more wealth there is the better 
it will be for all. It is wrong taxation that in¬ 
terferes with the equitable division of wealth and 
that is doing the injury to society. 

It is the monopoly of land, which is a special 
privilege, that interferes with the equitable 
division of wealth and( that is injuring civiliza¬ 
tion. When we raise all the public money by 
taxation of this special privilege and land mon¬ 
opoly, only, then no one will want to own any 
more land than he is able to put to average good 
use. That will make land as free as sunshine 
and the air we breathe. Then the cost of land, 
exclusive of improvements, will be only the reg¬ 
ular annual tax on the land, and there will be 
no consumptive taxes on the goods bought or 
sold. And what now goes to land rent will then 
go to wages, with no land rent nor consumptive 


134 


Constructive Democracy 


taxes added to the price of the goods that must 
be bought—which are now fully 65% on the 
dollar of what is being consumed. When these 
taxes are abolished, wages and earnings of farm¬ 
ers, laborers, factory workers and ordinary busi¬ 
ness men will be fully doubled. Then great wealth 
and money can no further injure society, because 
then great wealth will no longer be able to lend 
money on artificial land values, as the artificial 
values will disappear, and all unearned incomes 
will cease at once. Why not? 

Some say that life is more sacred than pri¬ 
vate property. That is a great mistake. There 
can be nothing that is more sacred than private 
property, because that is the only thing upon 
which life, itself, must depend that is moral; 
and when the state takes private property from 
the pockets of private parties, for public pur¬ 
poses, then the state is violating the rights of 
property, which is life, itself. Is it worse to 
rob without legislation than with? Does not 
wrong beget more wrong? Can Congress make 
a wrong method right and moral? 

Can there be peace and lasting prosperity 
until the state appropriates, by taxation, what 
by nature belongs to) the state, and ceases tak¬ 
ing from private pockets what by nature be¬ 
longs to private individuals? 

When the chief priests and scribes asked 
Jesus, “Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto 
Caesar?” and he said to them, “Render, there- 


What Is Law? 


135 


fore, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, 
and unto God the things that are God’s,” it was 
made plain that this tax is the natural public 
value, as he said to render to Caesar “the things 
that are Caesar’s.” 

Long 'ago it was prophesied that the first 
and foundation would be the last. Every con¬ 
ceivable wrong that is possible to be devised by 
the wisest wizards has been clothed with the 
most beautiful phraseology, rhetoric, dignity and 
legerdemain, to avoid the effect of equitable tax¬ 
ation. It required 6,000 years of experimenting 
to bring man to this issue and decision between 
the two alternatives, whether this world should 
be governed by natural law or by artificial, man¬ 
made rule. The natural leads to whole life, while 
the other leads to certain death. 

There are only Three first fundamental 
foundation principles to equitable government, 
and are as follows: 

The first is the right of the people to or¬ 
ganize the democratic state which brings the 
state into account to provide for this public ex¬ 
pense in an equitable way, this involves the sec¬ 
ond fundamental, which is: 

The first second foundation fundamental prin¬ 
ciple is to raise this public money, by equitable 
method of taxation. 

The third first fundamental foundation prin¬ 
ciple, is for government, to own and to operate 
all natural public utilities because the law of 


136 


Constructive Democracy 


constructive competition will not apply to them 
as in private affairs. 

Invisible Government and by Whom: 

The Literary Digest, October 14, 1922, com¬ 
menting cn an article in the Philadelphia Pub¬ 
lic Ledger, by Mr. Herbert N. Casson, says, un¬ 
der the heading, “How British Business Dic¬ 
tates British Policy: 

It is interesting to note an eminent British 
authority on business declaring that “the British 
people have an unwritten national policy just as 
they have an unwritten constitution.” “This pol¬ 
icy,” continues Mr. Herbert N. Casson, in a 
London letter to the Philadelphia Public Ledger, 
“has been developed by the necessities of trade 
and commerce, rather than by prime ministers 
and generals. This British policy has never been 
officially made known, but it is in the back¬ 
ground of every business man’s mind and might 
be expressed 1 as follows: 

Britain is the workshop of the world. It 
lives by foreign trade, therefore, to secure and 
hold markets it must invest money abroad, ac¬ 
quire colonies and control the seas; debts must 
be paid; the gold standard must be maintained; 
forms of government do not matter; law and 
order must be established and revolutions put 
down. 

The world must be made safe, not for 
democracy, for that is only a word, but for trade 
and commerce.” Here Mr. Casson tells us in 


What Is Law? 


137 


the Philadelphia paper, is “the national policy 
of the British thinking. It is not openly stated, 
since in England it is not considered good form 
to shout one’s beliefs from the housetops, but— 
in quiet talks among business associates and in 
directors’ meetings, Englishmen relate and say 
what they really believe. 

There are 75,000 joint stock companies in 
Britain, and they have directors’ meetings once 
a month. So there are at least 75,000 meetings, 
secret and unreported, and it is at these meet¬ 
ings that British business opinion is best shaped 
and expressed.” 

Going on to tell us what English business 
men are thinking, Mr. Casson points out that 
as far as cancellation of war debts is concerned, 
the only pro-cancellation articles that have ap¬ 
peared in the London papers have been written 
by Americans, while not one British chamber 
of commerce or trade association has passed a 
resolution in favor of the cancellation of debts.” 

Does not this statement by Mr. Casson 
make clear: by whom, where and why artificial 
man-made rule—misnamed, “law,”—is dominated 
over, and how legislatures and administrations 
are dominated over? Is there a nation that is 
free from this kind of a group, wielding the ma¬ 
gic wand of power over the plain people, in the 
name of democracy? 

Are not the same little groups under the 
folds of every flag, the patriots who create slo- 


138 


Constructive Democracy 


gans and keep the equitable, constructive science 
of politics hidden from the people? And are 
they not the ones who are responsible for the 
World Wars and revolutions, which Mr. Casson 
says must be put down, but which they, them¬ 
selves, make? Are not these upheavals caused 
by inequitable consumptive taxation, which cre¬ 
ates abnormal land rents? Then the expense is 
laid on the back of industry to pay, and industry 
breaks down, and revolutions and wars are in¬ 
evitable. 

Can the plain people get a hearing in legis¬ 
lation? And if they did, few know just what 
is needed to be done, because of the fact that 
this same group of great business men double- 
crosses the people at every effort. Big business 
has control of the places of learning, the party 
organizations, the newspapers, and of the pul¬ 
pit and every avenue of intelligence. 

Armies and navies are not what make wars 
and revolutions; they are only the tools that 
the real war-makers use. Then how can leagues 
of nations and disarmament bring peace and 
war to a close? Leagues of nations and disarm¬ 
ament may put down revolution, which they 
make, themselves, and they may force the peo¬ 
ple to accept their prescription and slavery and 
try to make them like it, but the masters will 
break down, after they have slaughtered millions. 

Mr. Casson tells us democracy is only a 
word; which is true as long as the voters do 


What Is Law? 


139 


not understand the power of equitable taxation, 
and government ownership and operation of 
all natural public utilities. When these two 
things have been brought into play in the game 
of life, there will be peace, after which disarma¬ 
ment will automatically take place. As long as 
we do not rule by equity there must be force. 
And he also says, “acquire colonies.” Where or 
how did England get the right to dominate over 
other people and colonize them. This group to 
which he referred, usurped that power, did they 
not? There are no rights, aside of natural ethics, 
the true democracy. 

Disarmament is not a political question, but 
is an economic matter. But before that can take 
place to any extent that will be of great conse¬ 
quence or even worth while, there must first be 
brought into play the taxation of land values, 
only, by which opportunities may be created, 
whereby the discharged soldiers may employ 
themselves and produce their living. Now, under 
present wrong conditions, the supply of labor is 
already overstocked. If the right course is not 
pursued, this same big business group may use 
the over-stock of labor as strike breakers and 
beat down wages to lower and lower levels, caus¬ 
ing revolution and making peace impossible. 

As to leagues of nations, the same group 
that now dictates! the policy of the nations will 
also dictate the policy of the league of nations; 
the dictators are well organized and have com- 


140 Constructive Democracy 

plete control, behind closed doors, in secrecy and 
unreported, as may be seen by the statement 
of Mr. Casson. 

As long as the nations are unwilling to 
bring into play equitable taxation and govern¬ 
mental ownership and operation of all natural 
public utilities, we need not expect peace, as 
that is impossible. And the two fundamental 
principles must come first, as they are the 
foundation upon which the entire governmental 
structure must rest, in order to function prop¬ 
erly. Equity only can bring peace and pros¬ 
perity. All other efforts are foolery. 

This is the natural law, ethics and equity, 
the only foundation dependable for peace. The 
trouble in Europe, at this time, and for that 
matter, the troubles of the entire world, are 
due to inequitable consumptive taxes and to the 
private ownership of public utilities, both of 
which are disobedience of divine order. When 
the proper corrections have beeen made, then 
natural rehabilitation will take place, automatic¬ 
ally, and the world will have peace and pros¬ 
perity. 

Trying to rehabilitate Europe by great fi¬ 
nancial loans is only throwing more oil on the 
already consuming fires, and it will aggravate 
the trouble, while it is filling the pockets of 
restless, ambitious and mischievous workers, 
commonly called statesmen, diplomats and poli¬ 
ticians; but they are not; they are merely wiz- 


What Is Law? 


141 


ards who use magic phraseology, and deception 
and fraud. Those who advance loans should take 
their own chance and risks, and not involve home 
nations. 

When the masters of great business and 
combines fall out among themselves, in the strife 
for domination, then monarchs, kings, presidents 
and the majority of legislators become only 
push-buttons of the real war makers. All are 
in a position of self-defense, and must do the 
will of their masters in order to hold their 
jobs, and the sheep hurry to the slaughter, and 
believe themselves free. 

If we had spent one tenth of the money 
and time in teaching democracy, and true equity, 
that we spend teaching militarism, there would 
have been no World’s War—but an everlasting 
peace, and not deceiving ourselves, by leagues of 
nations or international courts, and which must 
come before there can be peace and prosperity. 

When the door of democracy closes, the 
door of revolution automatically opens, as the 
two methods that I have described so often are 
the only methods whereby grievances can pos¬ 
sibly be corrected. The civil and natural way 
is by democracy, and when that avenue is closed, 
that opens the door to revolution. Big busi¬ 
ness, dictating policies of nations from behind 
closed doors, in secret and unreported, is the 
very worst breach of political ethics. These are 
the one who are sticklers for all forms of con- 


142 


Constructive Democracy 


sumptive taxes that caused the World War, and 
the Russian Revolution, and also that which took 
place in Old Mexico. Revolutions are always 
caused from within and not from without, as the 
group now in control of the governments of the 
world would have us believe. 

What is law? Natural ethics is the only 
law there are. 

Would it not be strange indeed if science, 
mathematics, chemistry, machinery, astronomy 
and all of the sciences must depend upon natural 
law for power and results, and that politics only 
is left out of this realm, and is only a matter of 
accident, whim and caprice for man to make, 
juggle and prescript? 


ARTICLE X. 


THE RIGHTS OF MAN TO THE USE OF THE EAJtTH. 

(From SOCIAL STATICS [9th Chap.], by 
Herbert Spencer. Reprint from “A Per¬ 
plexed Philosopher.”) 

CHAPTER IX.—THE RIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH. 

§ 1.—Given a race of beings having like claims to pur¬ 
sue the objects of their desires—given a world adapted 
to the gratification of those desires—a world into which 
such beings are similarly born, and it unavoidably follows 
that they have equal rights to the use of this world. For 
if each of them “has freedom to do all that he wills, pro¬ 
vided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other,” 
then each of them is free to use the earth for the satis¬ 
faction of his w r ants, provided he allows all others the 
same liberty. And conversely, it is manifest that no one, 
or part of them, may use the earth in such a way as to 
prevent the rest from similarly using it; seeing that to 
do this is to assume greater freedom than the rest, and 
consequently to break the law. 

§ 2. Equity, therefore, does not permit property in 
land. For if one portion of the earth’s surface may justly 
become the possession of an individual, and may be held 
by him for his sole use and benefit, as a thing to which 
he has an exclusive right, then other portions of the 
earth’s surface may be so held; and eventually the whole 
of the earth’s surface may be so held; and our planet 
may thus lapse altogether into private hands. Observe 
now the dilemma to which this leads. Supposing the en¬ 
tire habitable globe to be so inclosed, it follows that if the 
landowners have a valid right to its surface, all who are 
not landowners have no right at all to its surface. Hence, 
such can exist on the earth by sufferance only. They are 
all trespassers. Save by the permission of the lords of the 


144 


Constructive Democracy 


soil, they can have no room for the soles of their feet. 
Nay, should the others think fit to deny them a resting- 
place, these landless men might equitably be expelled from 
the earth altogether. If, then, the assumption that land 
can be held as property, involves that the whole globe may 
become the private domain of a part of its inhabitants; 
and if, by consequence, the rest of its inhabitants can 
then exercise their faculties—can then exist even—only by 
consent of the landowners; it is manifest, that an exclu¬ 
sive possession of the soil necessitates an infringement of 
the law of equal freedom. For, men who cannot “live and 
move and have their being” without the leave of others, 
cannot be equally free with those others. 

§ 3. Passing from the consideration of the possible to 
that of the actual, we find yet further reason to deny the 
rectitude of property in land. It can never be pretended 
that the exacting titles to such property are legitimate. 
Should any one think so, let him look in the chronicles. 
Violence, fraud, the prerogative of force, the claims of 
superior cunning—these are the sources to which those 
titles may be traced. The original deeds were written with 
the sword, rather than with the pen; not lawyers, but 
soldiers, were the conveyancers; blows were the current 
coin given in payment; and for seals, blood was used in 
preference to wax. Could valid claims be thus constituted? 
Hardly. And if not, what becomes of the pretensions of 
all subsequent holders of estates so obtained? Does sale 
or bequest generate a right where it did not previously 
exist? Would the original claimants be nonsuited at the 
bar of reason, because the thing stolen from them had 
changed hands? Certainly not. And if one act of trans¬ 
fer can give no title, can many? No: though nothing be 
multiplied forever, it will not produce one. Even the law 
recognizes this principle. An existing holder must, if 
called upon, substantiate the claims of those from whom 
he purchased or inherited his property; and any flaw in 
the original parchment, even though the property should 
have had a score intermediate owners, quashes his right. 


The Rights of Man to Use of the Earth 145 


“But Time,” say some, “is a great legalizer. Immem¬ 
orial possession must be taken to constitute a legitimate 
claim. That which has been held from age to age as 
private property, and has been bought and sold as such, 
must now be considered as irrevocably belonging to indi¬ 
viduals.” To which proposition a willing assent shall be 
given when its propounders can assign it a definite mean¬ 
ing. To do this, however, they must find satisfactory an¬ 
swers to such questions as, How long does it take for what 
was originally a wrong to grow into a right? At what 
rate per annum do invalid claims become valid? If a 
title gets perfect in a thousand years, how much more 
than perfect will it be in two thousand years?—and so 
forth. For the solution of which they will require a new 
calculus. 

Whether it may be expedient to admit claims of a cer¬ 
tain standing, is not the point. We have here nothing to 
do with considerations of conventional privilege or legis¬ 
lative convenience. We have simply to inquire what is 
the verdict given by pure equity in the matter. And this 
verdict enjoins a protest against every existing pretension 
to the individual possession of the soil; and dictates the 
assertion, that the right of mankind at large to the earth’s 
surface is still valid; all deeds, customs, and laws not¬ 
withstanding. 

§ 4. Not only have present land tenures an indefens¬ 
ible origin, but it is impossible to discover any mode in 
which land can become private property. Cultivation is 
commonly considered to give a legitimate title. He who 
has reclaimed a tract of ground from its primitive wild¬ 
ness, is supposed to have thereby made it his own. But if 
his right is disputed, by what system of logic can he vindi¬ 
cate it? Let us listen a moment to his pleadings. 

“Hallo, you Sir,” cries the cosmopolite to some back¬ 
woodsman, smoking at the door of his shanty, “by what 
authority do you take possession of these acres that you 
have cleared; round which you have put up a snake-fence, 
and on which you have built this log house?” 


146 


Constructive Democracy 


“By what authority? I squatted here because there was 
no one to say nay—because I was as much at liberty to 
do so as any other man. Besides, now that I have cut 
down the wood, and plowed and cropped the ground, this 
farm is more mine than yours, or anybody’s; and I mean 
to keep it.” 

“Aye, so you all say. But I do not yet see how you 
have substantiated your claim. When you came here you 
found the land producing trees—sugar-maples, perhaps; 
or maybe it was covered with prairie-grass and wild straw¬ 
berries. Well, instead of these you made it yield wheat, 
or maize, or tobacco. Now I want to understand how, by 
exterminating one set of plants, and making the soil bear 
another set in their place, you have constituted yourself 
lord of this soil for all succeeding time.” 

“Oh, those natural products which I destroyed were of 
little or no use; whereas I caused the earth to bring forth 
things good for food—things that help to give life and 
happiness.” 

“Still you have not shown why such a process makes 
the portion of earth you have so modified yours. What 
is it that you have done? You have turned over the soil 
to a few inches in depth with a spade or a plow; you have 
scattered over this prepared surface a few seeds; and you 
have gathered the fruits which the sun, rain, and air 
helped the soil to produce. Just tell me, if you please, by 
what magic have these acts made you sole owner of that 
vast mass of matter, having for its base the surface of 
your estate, and for its apex the center of the globe? all 
of which it appears you would monopolize to yourself and 
your descendants forever.” 

“Well, if it isn’t mine, whose is it? I have dispossessed 
nobody. When I crossed the Mississippi yonder, I found 
nothing but the silent woods. If some one else had settled 
here, and made this clearing, he would have had as good 
a right to the location as I have. I have done nothing but 
what any other person was at liberty to do had he come 
before me. Whilst they were unreclaimed, these lands be- 


The Rights of Man to Use of the Earth 147 


longed to all men—as much to one as to another—and they 
are now mine simply because I was the first to discover 
and improve them.” 

“You say truly, when you say that ‘whilst they were un¬ 
reclaimed these lands belonged to all men.’ And it is my 
duty to tell you that they belong to all men still; and that 
your ‘improvements’ as you call them, cannot vitiate the 
claim of all men. You may plow and harrow, and sow and 
reap; you may turn over the soil as often as you like; but 
all your manipulations will fail to make that soil yours, 
which was not yours to begin with. Let me put a case. 
Suppose now that in the course of your wanderings you 
come upon an empty house, which in spite of its dilapidat¬ 
ed state takes your fancy; suppose that with the intention 
of making it your abode you expend much time and trouble 
in repairing it—that you paint and paper, and whitewash, 
and at considerable cost bring it into a habitable state. 
(Suppose further, that on some fatal day a stranger is an¬ 
nounced, who turns out to be the heir to whom this house 
has been bequeathed; and that this professed heir is pre¬ 
pared with all the necessary proofs of his identity; what 
becomes of your improvements? Do they give you a valid 
title to the house? Do they quash the title of the original 
claimant?” 

“No.” 

“Neither then do your pioneering operations give you a 
valid title to this land. Neither do they quash the title of 
its original claimants—the human race. The world is 
God’s bequest to mankind. All men are joint heirs to it; 
you amongst the number. And because you have taken 
up your residence on a certain part of it, and have sub¬ 
dued, cultivated, beautified that part—improved it as you 
say, you are not therefore warranted in appropriating it 
as entirely private property. At least if you do so, you 
may at any moment be justly expelled by the lawful owner 
^-Society.” 

“Well, but surely you would not eject me without mak¬ 
ing some recompense for the great additional value I have 


148 


Constructive Democracy 


given to this tract, by reducing what was a wilderness into 
fertile fields. You would not turn me adrift and deprive 
me of all the benefit of those years of toil it has cost me to 
bring this spot into its present state.” 

“Of course not: just as in the case of the house, you 
would have an equitable title to compensation from the 
proprietor for repairs and new fittings, so the community 
cannot justly take possession of this estate, without pay¬ 
ing for all that you have done to it. This extra worth 
which your labor has imparted to it is fairly yours; and 
although you have, without leave, busied yourself in bet¬ 
tering what belongs to the community, yet no doubt the 
community will duly discharge your claim. But admitting 
this, is quite a different thing from recognizing your right 
to the land itself. It may be true that you are entitled 
to compensation for the improvements this inclosure has 
received at your hands; and at the same time it may be 
equally true that no act, form, proceeding, or ceremony, 
can make this inclosure your private property.” 

§ 5. It does indeed at first sight seem possible for the 
earth to become the exclusive possession of individuals by 
some process of equitable distribution. “Why,” it may be 
asked, “should not men agree to a fair sub-division? If 
all are co-heirs, why may not the estate be equally appor¬ 
tioned, and each be afterwards perfect master of his own 
share?” 

To this question it may in the first place be replied, that 
such a division is vetoed by the difficulty of fixing the 
values of respective tracts of land. Variations in produc¬ 
tiveness, different degrees of accessibility, advantages of 
climate, proximity to the centers of civilization—these, and 
other such considerations, remove the problem out of the 
sphere of mere mensuration into the region of impossibility. 

But, waiving this, let us inquire who are to be the al¬ 
lottees. Shall adult males, and all who have reached 
twenty-one on a specified day, be the fortunate individ¬ 
uals? If so, what is to be done with those who come of 
age on the morrow? Is it proposed that each man, woman, 


The Rights of Man to Use of the Earth 149 


and child, shall have a section? If so, what becomes of 
all who are to be born next year? And what will be the 
fate of those whose fathers sell their estates and squander 
the proceeds? These portionless ones must constitute a 
class already described as having no right to a resting- 
place on earth—as living by the sufferance of their fellow- 
men—as being practically serfs. And the existence of 
such a class is wholly at variance with the law of equal 
freedom. 

Until, therefore, we can produce a valid commission 
authorizing us to make this distribution—until it can be 
proved that God has given one charter of privileges to one 
generation, and another to the next—until we can demon¬ 
strate that men born after a certain date are doomed to 
slavery, we must consider that no such allotment is per¬ 
missible. 

§ 6. Probably some will regard the difficulties insepar¬ 
able from individual ownership of the soil, as caused by 
pushing to excess a doctrine applicable only within ration¬ 
al limits. This is a very favorite style of thinking with 
some. There are people who hate anything in the shape 
of exact conclusions; and these are of them. According 
to such, the right is never in either extreme, but always 
half-way between the extremes. They are continually 
trying to reconcile Yes and No. Its and buts, and excepts, 
are their delight. They have so great a faith in “the ju¬ 
dicious mean” that they would scarcely believe an oracle, 
if it uttered a full-length principle. Were you to inquire 
of them whether the earth turns on its axis from East to 
West, or from West to East, you might almost expect the 
reply—“A little of both,” or “Not exactly either.” It is 
doubtful whether they would assent to the axiom that the 
whole is greater than its part, without making some quali¬ 
fication. They have a passion for compromises. To meet 
their taste, Truth must always be spiced with a little 
Error. They cannot conceive of a pure, definite, entire, 
and unlimited law. And hence, in discussions like the 
present, they are constantly petitioning for limitations— 


150 


Constructive Democracy 


always wishing to abate, and modify, and moderate—ever 
protesting against doctrines being pursued to their ulti¬ 
mate consequences. 

But it behooves such to recollect, that ethical truth is 
as exact and as peremptory as physical truth; and that in 
this matter of land tenure, the verdict of morality must 
be distinctly yea or nay . Either men have a right to make 
the soil private property, or they have not. There is no 
medium. We must choose one of the two positions. There 
can be no half-and-half opinion. In the nature of things 
the fact must be either one way or the other. 

If men have not such a right, we are at once delivered 
from the several predicaments already pointed out. If 
they have such a right, then is that right absolute, sacred, 
not on any pretense to be violated. If they have such a 
right, then is his Grace of Leeds justified in warning off 
tourists from Ben Mac Dhui, the Duke of Atholl in clos¬ 
ing Glen Tilt, the Duke of Buccleuch in denying sites to 
the Free Church, and the Duke of Sutherland in banish¬ 
ing the Highlanders to make room for sheep-walks. If 
they have such a right, then it would be proper for the sole 
proprietor of any kingdom—a Jersey or Guernsey, for ex¬ 
ample—to impose just what regulations he might choose on 
its inhabitants—to tell them that they should not live on 
his property, unless they professed a certain religion, 
spoke a particular language, paid him a specified rever¬ 
ence, adopted an authorized dress, and conformed to all 
other conditions he might see fit to make. If they have 
such a right, then is there truth in that tenet of the ultra- 
Tory school, that the landowners are the only legitimate 
rulers of a country—that the people at large remain in 
it only by the landowners’ permission, and ought conse¬ 
quently to submit to the landowners’ rule, and respect 
whatever institutions the landowners set up. There is no 
escape from these inferences. They are necessary corol¬ 
laries to the theory that the earth can become individual 
property. And they can only be repudiated by denying 
that theory. 


The Rights of Man to Use of the Earth 151 


§ 7. After all, nobody does implicitly believe in land¬ 
lordism. We hear of estates being held under the king, 
that is, the state; or of their being kept in trust for the 
public benefit; and not that they are the inalienable pos¬ 
sessions of their nominal owners. Moreover, we daily deny 
landlordism by our legislation. Is a canal, a railway, or 
a turnpike road to be made? we do not scruple to seize 
just as many acres as may be requisite; allowing the hold¬ 
ers compensation for the capital invested. We do not wait 
for consent. An Act of Parliament supersedes the author¬ 
ity of title-deeds, and serves proprietors with notices to 
quit, whether they will or not. Either this is equitable, 
or it is not. Either the public are free to resume as much 
of the earth’s surface as they think fit, or the titles of the 
landowners must be considered absolute, and all national 
works must be postponed until lords and squires please to 
part with the requisite slices of their estates. If we de¬ 
cide that the claims of individual ownership must give 
way, then we imply that the right of the nation at large 
to the soil is supreme—that the right of private possession 
only exists by general consent—that general consent being 
withdrawn it ceases—or, in other words, that it is no 
right at all. 

§ 8. “But to what does this doctrine, that men are 
equally entitled to the use of the earth, lead? Must we 
return to the times of uninclosed wilds, and subsist on 
roots, berries, and game? Or are we to be left to the man¬ 
agement of Messrs. Fourier, Owen, Louis Blanc, and Co.?” 

Neither. Such a doctrine is consistent with the highest 
state of civilization; may be carried out without involving 
a community of goods; and need cause no very serious 
revolution in existing arrangements. The change required 
would simply be a change of landlords. Separate owner¬ 
ships would merge into the joint-stock ownership of the 
public. Instead of being in the possession of individuals, 
the country would be held by the great corporate body— 
Society. Instead of leasing his acres from an isolated 
proprietor, the farmer would lease them from the nation. 


152 


Constructive Democracy 


Instead of paying his rent to the agent of Sir John or his 
Grace, he would pay it to an agent or deputy agent of the 
community. Stewards would be public officials instead of 
private ones; and tenancy the only land tenure. 

A state of things so ordered would be in perfect har¬ 
mony with the moral law. Under it all men would be 
equally landlords; all men would be alike free to become 
tenants. A, B, C, and the rest, might compete for a va¬ 
cant farm as now, and one of them might take that farm, 
without in any way violating the principles of pure equity. 
All would be equally free to bid; all would be equally free 
to refrain. And when the farm had been let to A, B, or 
C, all parties would have done that which they willed—- 
the one in choosing to pay a given sum to his fellow-men 
for the use of certain lands—the others in refusing to pay 
that sum. Clearly, therefore, on such a system, the earth 
might be inclosed, occupied, and cultivated, in entire sub¬ 
ordination to the law of equal freedom. 

§ 9. No doubt great difficulties must attend the re¬ 
sumption, by mankind at large, of their rights to the soil. 
The question of compensation to existing proprietors is a 
complicated one—one that perhaps cannot be settled in a 
strictly equitable manner. Had we to deal with the par¬ 
ties who originally robbed the human race of its heritage, 
we might make short work of the matter. But, unfortu¬ 
nately, most of our present landowners are men who have, 
either mediately or immediately—either by their own acts, 
or by the acts of their ancestors—given for their estate 
equivalents of honestly earned wealth, believing that they 
were investing their savings in a legitimate manner. To 
justly estimate and liquidate the claims of such, is one of 
the most intricate problems society will one day have to 
solve. But with this perplexity and our extrication from 
it, abstract morality has no concern. Men having got 
themselves into the dilemma by disobedience to the law, 
must get out of it as well as they can; and with as little 
injury to the landed class as may be. 


The Rights of Man to Use of the Earth 153 


Meanwhile, we shall do well to recollect, that there are 
others besides the landed class to be considered. In our 
tender regard for the vested interests of the few, let us 
not forget that the rights of the many are in abeyance; 
and must remain so, as long as the earth is monopolized 
by individuals. Let us remember, too, that the injustice 
thus inflicted on the mass of mankind, is an injustice of 
the gravest nature. The fact that it is not so regarded, 
proves nothing. In early phases of civilization even homi¬ 
cide is thought lightly of. The suttees of India, together 
with the practice elsewhere followed of sacrificing a heca¬ 
tomb of human victims at the burial of a chief, shows 
this; and probably cannibals consider the slaughter of 
those whom “the fortune of war” has made their prison¬ 
ers, perfectly justifiable. It was once also universally 
supposed that slavery was a natural and quite legitimate 
institution—a condition into which some were born, and 
to which they ought to submit as to a Divine ordination; 
nay, indeed, a great proportion of mankind hold this 
opinion still. A higher social development, however, has 
generated in us a better faith, and we now to a consider¬ 
able extent recognize the claims of humanity. But our 
civilization is only partial. It may by and by be perceived, 
that Equity utters dictates to which we have not yet list¬ 
ened; and men may then learn, that to deprive others of 
their rights to the use of the earth, is to commit a crime 
inferior only in wickedness to the crime of taking away 
their lives or personal liberties. 

§ 10. Briefly reviewing the argument, we see that the 
right of each man to the use of the earth, limited only by 
the like rights of his fellow-men, is immediately deducible 
from the law of equal freedom. We see that the main¬ 
tenance of this right necessarily forbids private property 
in land. On examination all existing titles to such prop¬ 
erty turn out to be invalid; those founded on reclamation 
inclusive. It appears that not even an equal apportion¬ 
ment of the earth amongst its inhabitants could generate 
a legitimate proprietorship. We find that if pushed to 


154 Constructive Democracy 

its ultimate consequences, a claim to exclusive possession 
of the soil involves a landowning despotism. We further 
find that such a claim is constantly denied by the enact¬ 
ments of our legislature. And we find lastly, that the 
theory of the co-heirship of all men to the soil, is consist¬ 
ent with the highest civilization; and that, however diffi¬ 
cult it may be to embody that theory in fact, Equity stern¬ 
ly commands it to be done. 

Mr. Spencer wrote the above in the year 1850; 
he made clear, and pointed it out ably, that the 
greatest wrong—the worst mistake—ever made 
by mankind, from the first dawn of man to our 
time, was making private property of land; and 
that the matter would have to be dealt with 
at some future time; the justice, equity and ad¬ 
vancing civilization would demand the correction 
of the mistake; that readjustment of the land 
would have to take place. 

He also made clear that man's personal 
rights and liberty depended on the free and equal 
rights to the use of the land, among all men; 
but Mr. Spencer did not point out the method by 
which this could or should be done. That, he 
did not know, for the method of correction of the 
wrong had not yet been discovered. He did not 
know that the method of doing this, justly and 
equitably, was the greatest of all mysteries that 
would ever have to be undertaken by man, and 
that it had been so from the beginning of time, 
that it is the final judgment—the end of the 
old world and the beginning of the new. 

The method by which this could be done 
was discovered by an American, Mr. Henry 


The Rights of Man to Use of the Earth 155 

George, in the years 1888 and 1889. The won¬ 
derful discovery had been kept a secret until the 
time arrived for its need and application. Mr. 
George was, one of the most profound thinkers 
that the world ever knew, as well as a brilliant 
writer and lecturer. No man can refute “Pro¬ 
gress and Poverty,” “Protection or Free Trade?” 
the works that he left for the benefit and glory 
of mankind. It appears as though these books 
have been very carefully guarded against, and 
kept out of places of learning, both small and 
great, and also of the press, by shackling the 
hands of editorial writers, and by all other ways 
possible. Had this not been done it is likely 
that we should never have had the World War. 

There are only four methods by which re¬ 
distribution of the land could take place. Three 
of them are impracticable, leaving only one 
that is entirely feasible, so that the work may 
be done in a manner that is fair, equitable and 
just to all, land owners, as well as the landless. 

The first method that is impracticable, 
would be for the land owners to donate their 
land to the state; that we need not expect. If 
they did, how would it be distributed? 

The second would be for the state to con¬ 
fiscate the land; that would be unjust. Again, 
how could it be equitably distributed? 

The third would be for the state to purchase 
the land from its owners; that would be equally 
unfair to the landless, as by natural rights the 


156 


Constructive Democracy 


land always did belong to the people, but was 
confiscated, and every title was written by the 
sword in blood, and by force and fraud; the 
interlopers are the debtors, now, to both the 
state and the landless, and to create indebted¬ 
ness would be simply to further the wrong to 
those living at present and also to those yet 
to be born. 

Long ago the Almighty declared: “The land 
shall not be sold, forever; the land is Mine, for 
ye are strangers and sojourners with Me.” Levi 
25:23. 

The fourth method is fair, just and equit¬ 
able to both the landed and the landless, as it 
does not destroy nor disturb the present own¬ 
ership of land, except where it is held out of 
use or for speculative purposes, away from the 
working farmer. This method is the only re¬ 
lief possible for them, or for factory workers or 
laborers, and also for ordinary business. 

This is the only remedy: For all public 
revenue and taxes to be raised by taxation of 
land values, only, exclusive of all property; this 
will set all free, in one constructive sweep, man, 
land, production and exchange, with an equitable 
division of wealth produced. Then will volun¬ 
tary co-operation and exchange take place, as 
never before in the world's history, which will 
be of the greatest benefit to the land owners, 
themselves, as well as to all other business men. 


The Rights of Man to Use of the Earth 157 

How much longer will we permit the black 
art of diplomacy, witch-craft, and the workers 
of legerdemain, to fool us from one spasm into 
a thousand? Are we never going to be able to 
exchange instinct for reason and knowledge? 
Can we never raise ourselves above animals? 

Equitable taxation settles, forever, wars, na¬ 
tional and revolutionary, and it also settles un¬ 
employment, strikes, greed and selfishness; it 
removes the scepter from the hand of mighty 
domination, and places it in the hand of reason, 
equity and democracy. 

There is no harm, as some believe, in let¬ 
ting the ownership of land remain private, as it 
is now, provided the state raises all of the pub¬ 
lic moneys from the values of land exclusive of 
all private and personal property. The harm 
comes from allowing the owners of land to take 
the land rent for their own private use, when it 
naturally is a public-created value, which natural¬ 
ly belongs to its creators, the public. This value 
falls into the hands of land owners, without any 
effort, whatever, on their part. But the land 
rent does not really belong to them, as they owe 
it to the state, for the exclusive privilege in 
which the state protects them—that is, the power 
to be masters and kings over certain plots of 
land. All the ownership that they may have 
can come from the consent of the majority now 
living, and from that only. That is democracy. 


158 


Constructive Democracy 


Let the state take what, by nature, belongs 
to the state; then keep its hand out of private 
pockets, taking private property for the public 
use. Obey ethics and equity, then both will fare 
better. 

This change may be brought about without 
disturbing the economic conditions in the least— 
simply by letting it lap in, by a period of, say, 
ten years, beginning the first year by increas¬ 
ing the tax on land values 10%, and at the same 
time decreasing the taxes, from indirect and per¬ 
sonal property, at about the corresponding ratio 
of 10% and by continuing this, each consecu¬ 
tive year, for a period of ten years—increasing 
the taxes on land values, at the same time cor¬ 
respondingly decreasing on personal property, 
licenses, tariffs, and incomes, to the point where 
all indirect taxes are completely wiped from 
the programs of taxation, which would leave the 
taxes on land values and on them alone. 

This is the resurrection and the life, and 
the birth of a new day, as seen and declared by 
the prophets, long ago. 

Mr. Spencer started in to champion the 
cause of justice and equity; his work was master¬ 
ly; he succeeded so well that he was idealized 
and was in touch with the exclusive, cultivated 
and vain. For some reason he lost some of his 
fairness and grace; he endeavored to wipe away 
or hide the most valuable part of his wonderful 


The Rights of Man to Use of the Earth 159 

achievement—his life work; but he did not suc¬ 
ceed. Mr. George said to him: 

“If your defense of the equal rights to the 
use of the land was the truth when you wrote 
it, in 1852, it must be the truth yet; if you have 
found any reason why it is not true, show us your 
reason.” 

To which Mr. Spencer replied: “I am too 
old to enter into a discussion.” 

Is this not why, truth never changes? The 
God of Nature, the Infallible, Everlasting, Im¬ 
mutable Principle never changes. 

“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the 
Spirit said to the churches: To him that over- 
cometh will I give to understand the hidden mys¬ 
tery, and I will give him a white stone, and in 
the stone a new name written, which no man 
knoweth except him that hath received it.” This 
is the judgment day, and true gospel applied, that 
the prophets foresaw; retribution and resurrection 
of true and full life, and birth of the new day. 



















































































































































ARTICLE XI. 


CONCLUSION AND COMMENT. 

M AN cannot see truth from the light that 
surrounds him; it can be seen only by the 
light that is within him. For that reason this 
work may be viewed from different angles. 
However, this is not written to disturb the 
peace of anyone, but that higher ideals may be 
ushered into the game of life by civil demo¬ 
cratic means.; 

Whosoever drags the red herring of hy¬ 
pocrisy across the path of democracy, is hid¬ 
ing the equitable science of political ethics from 
the public, by controlling the great places of 
learning, party organizations, the editorial writ¬ 
ers of the press, or any other avenue of intel¬ 
ligence, by that act automatically opens the door 
to revolution and is not truly American. The 
right of the ballot, of free speech and assembly, 
is the guiding star of the world, and was in¬ 
cubated by the fathers of American democracy. 
What is he who would pull down the curtain of 
darkness to hide this ideal start of promise and 
hope from the daughters and sons of America, 
the only means of correcting grievances by civil 
means ? 

I find some who are ready and willing to 
place the blame of wrong doing upon human 


162 


Constructive Democracy- 


nature. That is a false assumption and puts 
the blame on the God of Creation; it is only the 
bray of an ass, who speaks with man’s voice, as 
an excuse for and to justify his own wrong do¬ 
ing; it is he, himself, who has that selfish, na¬ 
ture. There are only a few privileged ones who 
are in control, through this kind of deception, 
which keeps the science of true politics hidden 
from the public. 

There is nothing in all creation that is so 
perfect as human nature. The quality value and 
will of man, in the proper natural evironment, 
are far more perfect than his physical body and 
form of flesh. 

Self preservation being the first law of 
natural life, man is forced to act unnaturally, on 
account of false environment, created by in¬ 
equitable taxation. The few who dominate and 
falsely control legislation are to blame for this. 
This places man in the position of self-defense, 
and does not allow him to act according to his 
nature. He is the victim. 

When the nation is administered by natural 
law and equity, then environment and conditions 
will become favorable and possible for man to 
act according to natural ethics, and will perfect 
the quality and value of his will. Then a living 
soul may enter into the temple of life, body and 
flesh. 

Faith, hope and prayers, without action, are 
not enough to bring national equity about. We 


Conclusion 


163 


are shown in holy writ that God will not do for 
us what we can do for ourselves. This call was 
made 2,000 years ago, when the Nazarene 
mounted the stage of action. Free speech was 
then objectionable, as it is yet, somewhat, when 
it interferes with privilege. Had he remained neu¬ 
tral on equity he would never have been crucified. 
He made it clear many times that the mystery 
of salvation is a national affair, duty and 
function, which makes Christianity properly a 
political science, equitable, applicable and con¬ 
structive, but which controlling hypocrisy has 
managed to keep hidden. However, I do not 
wish this to be understood to be a religious af¬ 
fair; that is a different thing, altogether. Re¬ 
ligion is a theory and faith, emotion without 
understanding; while Christianity is the polit¬ 
ical principle of national equity and salvation, 
upon which the individual and nation must de¬ 
pend and act, in order to be saved. 

When this mystery can be hidden, now, when 
all are able to read and have books and papers, 
how much easier it must have been to hide the 
truth, in the time of Jesus, when few could 
read, and there were no printing presses nor 
newspapers. Pilate asked Jesus, “What is the 
truth?” But, if Jesus answered the question, 
the reply has been omitted from the Scriptures. 
Was Jesus a coward, or was the answer left out 
by the translators? The educators of today are 
unwilling to enlighten the public, and they were 


164 Constructive Democracy 

not any better then, than now. Does anyone 
suppose that King James, or any translators, 
wanted justice and equity? Equity, alone, is 
the key that can unlock the most sacred, the 
highest and holiest of mysteries, from the be¬ 
ginning to our time. For Jesus not to have 
answered would have left the whole earth a 
battlefield and cemetery for 2,000 years. I 
cannot believe that the question was left un¬ 
answered; but there is plenty of evidence all 
through the Scriptures to show what was need¬ 
ful. 

Col. 1, vs. 26-27. “Even the mystery which 
hath been hid from ages and for generations, 
but now made manifest to the saints; to whom 
God would make known what is the riches of 
the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; 
which is Christ in you, the hope and glory.” 

Romans, 16, vs. 25-26, shows that salva¬ 
tion is a national affair, which is also shown in 
hundreds of other places in the Scriptures, too 
numerous to bring in. 

“Jesus” was the name of a man who was 
the son of God, was he not? “Christ” is the 
principle of salvation, which alone can save the 
nation, and on which individuals must depend. 
Is this not true? Then what is the principle 
that will save both? It is justice—equity—is it 
not? Then how can we have justice? Isn’t it 
the first duty of the nation to install equitable 
taxation? Is not equity the Golden Rule? 


Conclusion 


165 


Jesus said that on this hangs the law, did he 
not? Is the Golden Rule to apply only to indi¬ 
vidual life, and to be left out of national life, 
when the state, only, can create the environment 
upon which the individual must depend for just 
and equitable actions and results of full reward 
for services rendered? That is salvation, is it 
not? How can the individual save himself, when 
he does not receive a full reward for services? 
Was not the state created by the people, for the 
purpose of protecting individual rights—of main¬ 
taining the sacredness of private property, in 
accordance with natural equity, and for the pur¬ 
pose of making, owning and operating the natural 
public utilities? Then does not doing this make 
Christianity an equitable, national and political 
duty? Would not this keep the peace and give 
everlasting life to the nation? Was not Jesus 
a politician, called by the God of Nature, as 
King of Kings? 

Was it not commanded by the Creator of 
the rulers, kings, judges, priests, scribes, 
prophets, preachers and teachers, to feed His 
sheep—not bread, but knowledge, equity, which 
is Christianity, the true democracy, to teach the 
individual so the nations could be created upon 
principles of natural equity, and to be serious 
and to take this matter to heart, not to shear 
and fleece the sheep? And for failing in this 
what would be the penalty? When they failed, 
then Jesus made the call to create a state of 


166 


Constructive Democracy 


equity, as salvation and everlasting life to the 
state and nation. 

We say that Jesus died for sinners, that the 
world might be saved. Did not every soul that 
was sacrificed in our Civil War or that was sac¬ 
rificed in France or Belgium die for our sins? We 
say that he was born immaculate, which means 
spotless, but with principle of salvation; is it not ? 
“That which is conceived in her is of the Holy 
Ghost/’ means born whole and with full life, all 
the parts thereof; and therefore he would not 
live a hypocrite, conceived by natural law, the 
same as all are. Jesus, the man, died on the 
cross, but Christ, the Principle, never died. 
That is what the wizards have managed to 
keep hidden from the sheep—the equitable, con¬ 
structive principle of just national government, 
here on this earth, where all men would be equal 
heirs to the use of the land; that makes His 
work and efforts political. He that hath this 
knowledge, and who wills, loves, and works and 
sacrifices for that law, is born again in the image 
of his Creator, and is Christ in flesh, now; is it 
not? 

“Seek ye first his kingdom and his righteous¬ 
ness, and all these things shall be added unto 
you.” Matt. 6-33. Is not this national political 
ethics ? 

Hear what Jesus said about land rent, which 
is the natural tax, and which has become the 
head of the cornerstone which the builders re- 


Conclusion 


167 


jected in the administering of organized govern¬ 
ments. Does not this show clearly that the 
gospel and salvation are national political ethics, 
though the call is made to the individual, demo¬ 
cratically ? 

Jesus said: “And the season he sent a ser¬ 
vant, to the husbandman” who is the landlord, 
“to collect the land rent as taxes, that they should 
give him of the fruit of the vineyard; but the 
husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty. 
And again he sent another servant; and 
they beat him, also, and entreated him shame¬ 
fully, and sent him away empty. And again he 
sent the third; and they wounded him, also, and 
cast him out. Then said the lord of the vine¬ 
yard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved 
son, it may be they will receive him, when they 
see him.’ But when the husbandmen saw him 
they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This 
is the heir, come, let us kill him, that the in¬ 
heritance may be ours.’ So they cast him out 
of the vineyard, and killed him. What, there¬ 
fore, shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them ? 
He shall come and destroy the husbandmen, and 
shall give the vineyard to others. And when 
they heard it, they said, ‘God forbid.’ 

And he beheld them, and said, ‘What is 
this that is written, the stone which the build¬ 
ers rejected, the same is become the head of 
the corner? 


168 


Constructive Democracy 


Whosoever shall fall upon that stone, shall 
be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it 
will grind him to powder.” Luke 20: 10 to 18. 

“The land shall not be sold forever, for the 
land is mine, saith the Lord. The profit of 
the earth is for all.” 

The land is the storehouse and source of the 
crude material, from which all of the natural 
needs of man are supplied. The God of Nature 
gave the land to all mankind, free, but undi¬ 
vided. In the division lies hidden the greatest 
of all mystery ignoring of this equitable principle 
was what brought on the World’s War. 

In order that we may live and have holy 
lives,—wholly means all of the parts thereof— 
all must have access to this source of supply on 
equitable terms. Is this not Christ in us, in flesh, 
on earth? When this is fulfilled, then will ag¬ 
grandizement cease, both of man and nations, 
as then temptation will have been removed, 
which is the fundamental principle for peace, 
prosperity and happiness. Is not this Chris¬ 
tianity, itself? Can we have it without? To do 
this, indeed, is the only answer. 

“Moreover, the profit of the earth is for 
all.” Ecc. 5:9. 

“Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice, 
indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be 
a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; 
for all the earth is mine; and you shall be unto 


Condition 


169 


me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” 
Exodus 19:5-6. Is this not political? 

While man is in the physical state and 
sphere, and must depend upon physiological con¬ 
ditions to exist, they must be made possible by 
physiological national political equity. If that 
were done, then would we be living right. How, 
then, could we die wrong? Christ is the mes¬ 
sage, Jesus the messenger. To whom? 

Do religionists evade, or have they no nat¬ 
ural ethical program to offer in support of their 
claim or duty of salvation in this world? Have 
they no program to offer which is metaphysic¬ 
ally able, equitable, constructive and applicable to 
man's natural needs and welfare in this life? It 
was this for which the Saviour stood. Did he 
not make it clear from beginning to end, when 
he said, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done 
in earth?” That should be here and now. Did 
he not make it clear that faith and prayer with¬ 
out work and action are not enough for salva¬ 
tion—either of man or nation? 

What is he who bends his knees, with closed 
eyes and bowed head, in reverence and in sup¬ 
plication to his Creator, and at the samq time 
sanctions the taking of land rent by private per¬ 
sons for private use, which seems no more than 
the lipping of blank wishes to the wind, in 
mockery! Then to misname prayers! Is not 
prayer, proper, the doing of that will of equity 


170 


Constructive Democracy 


in administering national affairs and in teaching 
this truth from the pulpit? 

“Seek ye first the kingdom of righteous¬ 
ness.” Matt. 6.33. Why is this land filled with 
crime and vice, in business and legislation of 
schemes, traps, nets and jokers? Can crime 
cease from the bottom when those at the top 
rob those beneath? 

Is it humiliating ourselves to bring the 
Golden Rule of Christianity into legislation? Is 
it fitted only for camp meetings and fine edi¬ 
fying buildings, of custom, fashion, babble and 
pretense? Does privilege control the pulpit? 
Shall we ever be learning and never able to come 
to the knowledge of the truth? Shall this be 
turned into ridicule and joke by cats that lap 
the baby’s cream? 

Can history repeat itself, again, and have 
civilization live, after having increased the power 
of production, which increase science brought 
without also bringing into full play the truth of 
equity, so that an equitable division of this in¬ 
creased wealth may also take place? 

“And ye shall know the truth, and the 
truth shall make you free.” John 8:32. 

If we continue to administer public affairs 
as we now do, by man-made prescript rule of 
scheme and caprice, then there will be another 
baptism of blood, probably more terrible than 
we have yet experienced. We need not look in 


Conclusion 


171 


the ( Scriptures to see that. Anyone with fair¬ 
ness and reason can see this. 

It, is absolutely impossible to install science 
into production—thus increasing the output 
about 300 times greater than it was 100 years 
ago—and live and have peace and prosperity. 
Science has changed the old into a new world. 
This is what is making the pressing demand for 
the birth of a new day. 

If we bring into use the two highly de¬ 
veloped sciences, machinery and chemistry, which 
increase wealth so enormously, we must also 
bring into use the science of equitable taxation, 
in order that this increased wealth may be 
divided equitable and consumed at about the 
same ratio as the pace of production. Other¬ 
wise we shall wipe civilization from the face of 
the earth, as our taxation methods are now in 
contravention of the natural law and divine or¬ 
der. Disobedience of that is what brought the 
World War, which cost 15,000,000 or 20,000,000 
lives, besides about $300,000,000,000.00 in 
wealth, and which is mostly, yet, a mortgage on 
the back of industry, and is a never-ceasing 
world-consuming fire. 

Jesus asked, “What will you do when the 
end comes?” “For the nation and kingdom that 
will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those na¬ 
tions shall be utterly wasted.” Isa. 60-12. He 
that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit 
or reason saith unto the churches. To him that 


172 


Constructive Democracy 


is willing will I give to understand the hidden 
equity, and I will give him a white stone, and 
in the stone a new name written, which no man 
knoweth except he that receiveth it. This is to 
bring it into modern and better language than 
that at the time it was written. 

For the church to fail of teaching national 
equity, is to bring the judgment upon our 
heads. 

There was religion before the advent of 
Jesus. There has always been religion. Prob¬ 
ably there always will be, but religion has not 
met economic need. Poverty exists, inequity and 
injustice exist and the long suffering and weary 
world is still looking for the dawn of the better 
day. 

Rightly understood, the teachings of Jesus 
lead on, not only spiritual kinship with God but 
also to economic kinship between man and man. 
“Love your neighbor as yourself/' he said. 
“Bear ye one another's burdens," he commanded. 
And these supreme injunctions are nothing more 
and can be nothing more than an appeal to the 
reversal heart and brain of mankind to do jus¬ 
tice, to love equity, and thus fulfill the supreme 
love of righteousness. 

There is no doubt but that Christianity is 
the principle of national political ethics; those 
who understand well know that. But it is not 
in making rules and punishing crime from be¬ 
neath, but in laying natural fundamentals, which 


Conclusion 


173 


is not being done. That is why many look upon 
theology or religion as emotion, fanaticism, 
infidelity and agnosticism, or superstition and 
idolatry; that is why many turn infidels or 
agnostics. I hear of atheists, but have never 
met one, and I think that there are none. There 
have been and still are thousands of religions, but 
there can be but one Christianity, and it must 
be justice and equity, not of lip-service, but of 
action. 

Faith without understanding, and to admit 
that Jesus was the son of God by lip only, to be 
baptized and to lip wishes and misname prayer, 
are all only matters upon which equitable con¬ 
structive legislation can not act. This may be 
religion and pagan—but it requires natural 
ethics, equity and justice to have Christianity. 

Why is it that instructors are not teaching 
an exact science of political ethics in our great 
universities, colleges and other places of learn¬ 
ing—one that is equitable, constructive and ap¬ 
plicable? 

They do teach economics, sociology and busi¬ 
ness evolution with its diversity of interests, to¬ 
gether with history, and give the impression that 
it is practical politics. But what they teach has 
no more relation to the science of politics than 
bricks have to overshoes. Their so-called 
science is only quackery, that hides the truth 
and confuses the student of the real science of 
politics. Science deals with the natural law and 


174 


Constructive Democracy 


its relation to man and matter; it is altogether 
different from prescript of man. The principles 
that are equitable, exact, constructive and ap¬ 
plicable are completely left out of the text-books. 

The great universities and other places of 
learning do not teach or show that politics is 
an exact science; nor do they show( the differ¬ 
ence between land rent and interest on capital, 
which is very important and must be seen to 
understand politics; nor do they show that land 
rent is usury when taken by private parties for 
private use; nor do they show that land rent 
is by nature the equitable tax and rightfully be¬ 
longs to the state; nor do they show the differ¬ 
ence in effect between the indirect, inequitable 
consumptive tax, which is destructive in its na¬ 
ture, and the direct tax, which is constructive in 
its nature; nor do they make clear the distinc¬ 
tive difference between what is, by nature, 
wealth, and what is properly capital; (See def¬ 
inition) nor do they make clear the importance 
and difference between what constitutes a 
natuural public utility and those that are by 
nature private, and having a bad effect upon 
the public, when operated out of their natural 
lines. When a natural public utility is made 
private it can never be operated with fairness 
for the public good, because the natural law of 
competition cannot be applied to a public utility. 
As a consequence, artificial regulation must be 
resorted to, that never can meet the require- 


Conclusion 


175 


ments,—but which unites all kinds of franchises 
and special privileged monopolies into powerful 
dominating organizations that completely con 
trol national, state and municipal governments, 
and destroy the rule of the people, even though 
government has the form and every appearance 
of the bird of democracy; but it has its wings 
clipped. 

By these methods both students and people 
are kept in darkness by hiding the science of 
natural and, equitable politics, and by teaching, 
instead, what is called economics, sociology and 
evolution with its diversity of interests. 

The abstract foundation of science is the 
natural law, itself, cause, not effect. Social con¬ 
ditions will correct themselves as fast as natural 
law is brought into play. Crime and war, con¬ 
flict and clash, are the results of man’s false 
prescript rules and the natural law, in the name 
of practical politics. 

Let us hope for fairness from those who 
have received the blessing of education, handed 
down from above—never made by the hand of 
man. No man can even wink his eye inde¬ 
pendently, and of himself, without the power of 
nature’s presence.) 

When the people are kept in the dark, and 
are not educated in the true science of political 
ethics; when this is hidden from them by every 
conceivable unfair means, then the raising of the 
public moneys becomes by far more important to 


176 Constructive Democracy 

the welfare of the public, during such crisis as 
the present one, than the form of government, 
itself, though that be ideal; whether it be label¬ 
ed democracy, republic, kingdom or monarchy. 
As a matter of fact all of them are raising the 
public moneys by about the same methods, from 
consumptive sources and each have the same 
trouble regardless of forms. This is because the 
people do not understand the law of equity and 
the science of taxation, which would qualify them 
to make wise use of the ballot and democracy. 
Without that understanding they lose control of 
nominations, and of platform bridling editorials 
are deprived of free debate and free press. 
Things which have a physical form are easily 
seen, but law is spiritual power, invisible to the 
eyes of the flesh, and can only be comprehended 
through education. 

To put the whole question into a nut-shell, 
or one! sentence: The people do not know what 
to do nor what must be done first and second. 

Because our educational system has fallen 
down, colleges, press and pulpit are dominated by 
autocracy. It is only a waste of time to read 
magazines and editorials on this line. In even 
the great dailies there is nothing suggested nor 
defended that is applicable, equitable and con¬ 
structive principles. 

Not long ago I attended a banquet. Seated 
at the table after the supper was a gentleman 
of considerable prominence; he was important 


Conclusion 


177 


and somewhat of an intellectual giant. He made 
the assertion that you cannot talk nor reason 
with the I. W. W.s, Socialists and Non-Partisan 
Leaguers. I replied: “I think I understand why 
that is true.” About the same time someone 
broke into the conversation. The gentleman to 
whom I was speaking gracefully tapped off his 
cigar ashes, and said to the party who had 
broken in: “Pardon me, I want to hear this 
gentleman's reason. No one has ever given me 
a satisfactory reason, yet.” 

I proceeded: “Political ethics is simple, easy 
to understand, exact, applicable, equitable and 
constructive. The I. W. W.s well know that 
they are dealt with unfairly, and are being 
robbed; but they do not see clearly how it is 
done; they have an honest grievance and they 
know it. That makes them persistent. 

You cannot meet theii 4 arguments until you 
are ready and willing to offer them something 
better than what they propose. And before you 
can do that you will have to expose and expound 
the power and mystery of equitable taxation and 
government ownership and operation of all 
natural public utilities. You fear getting them 
wise to that and are unwilling to play fair and 
expose the science of equity. 

Because of our hiding this from them they 
are trying to educate themselves and to find 
the path that will lead them out of the wilder¬ 
ness to justice and liberty. They are left at 


178 


Constructive Democracy 


the mercy of those who are confused, students of 
Carl Marx and other writers who have well writ¬ 
ten wrong text-books, thus the I. W. W.s are 
misguided. And instead of meeting them as 
men and brothers we try to out-wit them by 
phraseology and legerdemain bunk. Who is to 
blame for this?” 

To this the man whom I addressed did not 
reply, but turned the subject to something else. 

We hear the cry from the well educated 
that what we need is more education. Are not 
the highest, best educated and most learned al¬ 
ready leading the people from one pit-fall into 
another? Are not harmful dealings, of every 
description ever known, in halls of legislation 
and in all other avenues of life, brought about by 
those who are the very highest and best educated 
and learned ? ' 

Those who have little or no education are 
only as putty in the hands of the educated and 
learned, who are willing to turn their power and 
blessing received from the God of Nature to t 
fraud—to the deception of their fellow citizens. 
Then they blame the uneducated man if he is 
not good! And there are those who are educat¬ 
ed in what is right and good who are try in r ' 
to lead the vanguard into the gates of justice and 
equity. Heaven and earth are turned to double 
cross and hinder those that are trying to lead 
correctly, by the well educated, but the time is 


Conclusion 


179 


short, and the trap is set, for others will, this 
time, catch the trappers. 

I do not wish to blame anyone for ac¬ 
cumulating all the wealth he can, even though 
conditions be wrong and unfair; but I do blame 
all who are unwilling to change the conditions 
to right and fairness. 

Now that the discovery of the three great 
sciences has completely transformed the old 
world into a new one, for the birth of a new 
day, bringing into use the first of these sciences 
and refusing to bring into use the third one is 
our stumbling block, which has brought the is¬ 
sue to a point for the last time and chance for 
correction. 

Which shall it be, justice and equity, which 
bring prosperity, happiness and everlasting life, 
or shall it be inequality, which brings war, strife 
and bloodshed, disaster and death of civilization? 

It required 6,000 years of experiment to bring 
man to this issue and decision, between two alter¬ 
natives; whether he should be governed by ar¬ 
tificial, man-made rules, and thus destroy him¬ 
self, or by natural law, which brings life, peace 
and harmony. The reason that this is true is 
as follows: 

All natural laws that ever have been and 
will be discovered have and are equally endowed 
with two factors; one is power,. and the other 
is force. 


180 


Constructive Democracy 


When properly employed, power is equit¬ 
able and constructive, in all lines of man's en¬ 
deavors, no difference what or where they are, 
sometimes beyond comprehension and measure. 
When improperly employed power becomes force, 
inequitable and destructive, in all lines of man's 
endeavors, no difference what or where they 
are. Force is power misapplied. 

Nature has made her last call. In what 
direction shall this great and wonderful cannon 
be trained? From the beginning it was trained 
wrong. 

Can any sane person believe that Our Heav¬ 
enly Father created the land for the few to own 
and rent out to the many? He tells us that in 
the last days the merchants of the earth will 
wax rich and make merchandise of men. Is not 
the landlord the merchant of the earth? This 
is not the small farmer who works his own 
land; he is not doing the harm; it is the really 
large owners of estates and the speculators. 
Every effort will be made to tide this over by 
piece-meal and patch, jail and slaughter, but that 
will bring the end all the more abruptly. 

The sheep pay the shepherd a good salary 
to mislead them, as they will not study and 
read, think and reason things out for themselves. 
Then suppose the sheep would select a shepherd 
who has proper constructive ideas, and a remedy. 
The newspapers would set up such a howl and 
clamor that the sheep, themselves, would more 


Conclusion 


181 


than likely mistrust, and think him unworthy, 
and dispose of him because of that. Get wise; 
it will pay. 

About 25 years ago the Supreme Court of 
Missouri rendered a decision that made the 
farmers of the state wrathful and furious. 
That was enough for a wise lawyer to get into 
office. All he had to do was to denounce the 
Supreme Court, and threaten to throw it into 
the Missouri River, if the members came near. 
Then he was elected to the senate, where he 
has been ever since; but he did not have any 
constructive idea to offer—one that would bet¬ 
ter the condition of the farmers one whit. 
Scolding and loud talk and threats and criti¬ 
cism and denouncing are no argument. All that 
is devoid of remedy; but the farmers were 
angry. Principles of equity are the only things 
that count and are of value. The world is full 
of critics, magnetic, affable and of fine address, 
who are endowed with oratory, phraseology and 
English, who can hold an audience spellbound 
for hours, by their wonderful power, and never 
propose or suggest one single Idea that can be 
acted on, that is applicable, equitable or con¬ 
structive. That is legerdemain, magic and 
witchcraft. 

Admitting that Jesus was the Son of God, 
are faith, baptism and prayer all there is to 
do to have religion? Will it not require national 
equity to have Christianity and salvation? 


182 


Constructive Democracy- 


Science and religion will not mix; but science 
and Christianity will, because they are one and 
the same thing, under different names—natural 
principles, homogeneous. Nineteeen hundred 
years of rabbit-footing and the little white 
schoolhouse have delivered “Christ”—the myster- 
ious message of equity—to the vision of man, 
by the prophet of San Francisco. 

“Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is 
given; and the government shall be upon his 
shoulders; and his name shall be called Won¬ 
derful, Councelor, the mighty God, the ever¬ 
lasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”—Isaiah. 
Is this not National political equity. 

Can man be natural and good, when we 
legalize grand larceny from the top, before it 
is possible for illegal petty larceny to cease from 
the bottom? 

To all party organizations that seek justice, 
equity and peace on earth—which is but fair 
play in the game of life, and can be made pos¬ 
sible by the nation—there are only two planks 
in the platform and issue, as there are only two 
fundamental principles to natural government, 
because of their being the first and second ab¬ 
stractive foundations, upon which all other prin¬ 
ciples must depend to properly function; if more 
be brought in they will only confound and be 
hurtful. Until we bring natural homogeneous 
ethical order into government action, there can 


Conclusion 


183 


be no lasting peace, prosperity and happiness. 
Do what we will, all else will fail. 

The two planks are as follows: First, to raise 
all government, national, state, county, and muni¬ 
cipal taxes—all public moneys, for all public 
purposes—by taxation of land values, only, ex¬ 
clusive of all property, whatsoever, by lapping 
it in for a period of ten years. 

Second: Government ownership and oper¬ 
ation of all natural public utilities, the same to 
be paid for by the above method of taxation. 
For the reason that these two planks are suf¬ 
ficient, they will equalize opportunity to the use 
of the land, free exchange, bring into play the 
equitable division of wealth, to each just in ac¬ 
cordance with services rendered, and by the 
same constructive sweep bring to a close at once, 
all unearned incomes. Thus the two nostrums 
upon which special privilege rests its feet will 
be swept away. This is the only thing that will 
bring unearned incomes to a close. Those who 
pay this tax will still retain an undivided inter¬ 
est in what they pay. Taxation of land values, 
only, will spontaneously disarm the nations of the 
world and make military government a thing of 
the past. A crown of glory awaits the vanguard. 

The old, artificial, man-made world has 
reached the end, as may be seen by a study of 
the World War—the result of the conflict and 
clash between artificial man-made rule and whim, 
misnamed law, and the natural law, handed down 


184 


Constructive Democracy 


from above by the God of Nature; it is the 
beckoning hand, and nature’s last call for just 
and equitable taxation, which is the one and 
only possible hope of salvation for both man 
and civilization. From this there is no escape, 
no matter what else we do, or by whom may 
be done, though ever so great and powerful. 
All else must fail. The doom is on and the seal 
is set for the last time and chance. 

PLATFORM: 

Any political party that is earnestly seek¬ 
ing reconstructive principles—principles of true 
justice and equity— needs only two planks in 
its platform, as there are only two abstract 
fundamental principles to equitable government, 
after national, state, county and municipal gov¬ 
ernments have been established. 

The first that follows is the raising of the 
public moneys by just and equitable methods, 
which can be done by the taxation of land 
values, alone, exclusive of all personal property, 
tariffs, licenses, income taxes, and inheritance 
taxes. 

The second is government ownership and 
operation of all natural public utilities, which are 
the industries to which the natural law of con¬ 
structive type of competition cannot apply. These 
are the industries that rest on franchises, and in 
which all are not free to engage; and which gov¬ 
ernment may acquire and pay for by the above 
means of taxation. 


Conclusion 


185 


The new tax method may be brought into 
play by letting it lap and splice in in a period of 
ten years, by increasing the taxes on land values 
10% and at the same time decreasing 10% on 
personal property, tariffs, licenses, incomes, busi¬ 
ness and inheritance taxes, correspondingly, for 
a period of ten years, consecutively. Then jus¬ 
tice will prevail with equity, forever, and war 
and force will be history of the past. 

Now, let hypocrisy laugh! 

These two planks cover all the essentials, so 
that all remaining functionary principles will au¬ 
tomatically fall into the proper order, like cogs 
in a machine. To bring in other, or more com¬ 
plicated principles into the platform would be 
to clog the machine, or to pave the way for 
perplexity and confusion and hinder progress. 
Close with these two, as they are all the funda¬ 
mentals there are to equitable government after 
the state has been organized. 

LAST WORD. 

1 had hoped to get out this work from the 
premises of nature, alone, but when we come to 
analyze and arrive at the cause, proper, for true 
abstractive fundamental ethical foundations, we 
are brought face to face with the creative God 
of Nature, which is, of itself, one and the same 
power and cosmos of the great whole. Therefore 
I am compelled to bring both together, which 
may make this work a target for idolators and 


186 


Constructive Democracy 


scorners. But they should have been brought in 
long before this. 

This work is not written for emulation, nor 
for the reward it might bring in a financial way, 
though it has been done at quite an expense and 
sacrifice. However, circumstances and age will 
not allow me to look after this free, which is a 
disappointment to me. 

Several years ago I made up my mind that 
something like this should be gotten out. I saw 
the need, and hoped that someone would do this. 
I waited some time, until my patience was ex¬ 
hausted; then present conditions and age drove 
me to undertake the job; though I am fully 
aware that it is somewhat out of my line. I 
feel that there are others who might have done 
the work far better. Had I time, perhaps I 
could improve this; but because of the reasons 
mentioned I shall let the work go as it is, and see 
what the future may demand. I shall await 
criticism and approvals, which may help to qual¬ 
ify me for another effort. 

I wish to express my thanks to all writers, 
lecturers and thinkers who have preceded me 
in this line of work. I appreciate what they 
have done, as without it I should never have 
been able to accomplish the little that I have 
tried to make worth while; it may be small and 
lacking, but it is the best I have to offer. 

The works of Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer, 
Thomas Paine, Edward Patrick Dove and many 


Conclusion 


187 


others have been helpful to me; but to Henry 
George, the first one that the world has pro¬ 
duced who had the ability and intellectual power, 
the will and patience and tenacity, to analyze 
this science, I am deeply indebted. He has given 
terms the proper meanings, and has arranged 
ideas in applicable and constructive order, show¬ 
ing with clearness that political ethics is an ex¬ 
act science, simple and understandable, without 
the least shadow of a doubt, to all who are will¬ 
ing to study the principles of equity and justice; 
that the only source and avenue to equitable 
production, exchange and the equitable division 
of wealth—the only foundation for everlasting 
peace, the Ark of the Covenant—is, first, nat- 
tural taxation, the equilibrium and foundation 
principle of equitable government; and second, 
governmental ownership of all natural public 
utilities. 

Anyone who desires to investigate this 
science further may find it to his advantage to 
get “Progress and Poverty,” by Henry George. 
It is the only work that was ever written by one 
who understood this science and introduced it; 
he also proved that it is equitable, applicable and 
constructive, and that there is no other method 
possible. That is, in this work he laid down the 
law with satisfactory proof, at length, and the 
proof is as irrefutable as the law that governs 
mathematics; that is why it is kept hidden as 
much as possible, and is not even whispered in 


188 


Constructive Democracy 


places of learning. Whoever reads Mr. George’s 
book understandingly and in the right spirit 
will be well qualified for the work of instruction. 

It have repeated words, sentences and ideas, 
in this book, for the reason that iteration and 
reiteration are often necessary in order to make 
a deep and lasting impression on the human 
mind, which is prone to cling to old and mis¬ 
taken ideas; and also for the reason that I de¬ 
sire to have several articles that will show the 
doctrine and application clearly, by the reading 
of a single chapter. The different chapters will 
appear, singly, in papers and magazines. 




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